Boxing Challenge: Prograis and Donaire score WBSS KO wins

Plenty of catching up to do here after my weekend trip to Virginia and I'll be writing about those stops along with catching up with the remainder of the Cleveland Browns draft picks, including one that I am very excited about.

However, first, we start with the weekend in boxing and after a tremendous card from Matchroom and DAZN on Friday night, the Saturday portion had a high bar to leap to match that card and although some performances were excellent, that bar didn't come close to being reached.

The financially troubled World Boxing Super Series finally returned with two semi-finals and they were pretty predictable from Lafayette, Louisiana.
Regis Prograis won the WBA junior welterweight title from Kiryl Relikh when Relikh's corner stopped the fight with Prograis in full control in round six.
Prograis knocked Relikh down in the first round and never was threatened after that, cutting Relikh's nose, which bled most of the fight and simply didn't allow the champion to sustain any sort of offense.
Prograis will fight the winner of the Ivan Baranchyk-Josh Taylor fight which will also be for Baranchyk's IBF title in the finals of the tournament in a unification fight.
It's strange how boxing works as just 18 months after Terence Crawford vacated all four titles in a division that seemingly was cleaned out, the division has four exciting young champions (WBA Prograis, IBF Baranchyk, WBC Jose Ramirez and WBO Maurice Hooker) has another in Josh Taylor, who would be right there with a win over Baranchyk and looks like it could be on the verge of some compelling battles.
Meanwhile, Crawford, who moved up because of a lack of remaining challenges, looks to be filled with struggles with a lack of options at welterweight due to a top-heavy division that has most of those fighters promoted by someone else.
Only in boxing.

Also, in Lafayette, Nonito Donaire retained his WBA bantamweight belt with a highlight reel knockout in the sixth round over late replacement Stephon Young.
Young, who was on the undercard in a fight made for this exact situation, replaced WBO champion Zolani Tete, who pulled out on fight week due to a shoulder injury.
I like that the WBSS thinks ahead for these concerns, but Young wasn't on the same level as Donaire or for a world-class level tournament and it showed as Donaire won every round on his way to the one punch knockout.
Donaire will move on to the finals against the winner of the Naoya Inoue-Emmanuel Rodriguez tilt for Rodriguez's IBF championship.

I'm usually quite complimentary towards Showtime's boxing program.
Their production is top notch, Al Bernstein and Paulie Malignaggi are the best color commentators in the game and even though Mauro Ranallo isn't my choice of blow by blow men that man the mike, he's not like Gus Johnson and ruins things for me.
Still, even with all of that, the three-bout card from PBC, Saturday night was to put it nicely- a snoozer and should I prefer to go negative- the worst card from a major boxing provider perhaps ever.

The main event was for one of those minor trinkets that the WBA likes to hand out in return for sanctioning fees as former IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter drew with former IBF junior lightweight and lightweight champion Rances Barthelemy in one of the worst fights that you'll see.
A draw was the fairest verdict in a fight that saw NEITHER fighter land 55 punches over 12 rounds.
Just awful in the ring and awful that Showtime accepted this as the main event, to begin with.
I scored it 114-114, but hell, score it as you wish, I'm just lucky I stayed awake during it.
Let us all simply hope that the WBA, Showtime, Al Haymon, or anyone else does not decide to make this one happen again because this was arguably the worst main event that a major boxing network has televised in years.

The semi-main looked bad from the day that it was announced and it was just as bad in the ring as former WBC junior welterweight champion Viktor Postol won every boring round on my card (100-90) over Mohammed Mimoune.
Mimoune fell behind early against the taller Postol and with Mimoune's two career KO's. he wasn't coming from behind for a knockout.
Postol will become the mandatory contender for WBC champion Jose Ramirez, which will hopefully be more entertaining than this one was.

Heavyweight punisher Efe Ajajba blew out Michael Wallisch in two rounds of a squash match that was as competitive as expected.
Ajajba will hurt whom he hits but needs time to develop and I'd bet he's another year away from fighting someone that will really test him.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica eleven to eight for the Saturday totals to move my lead to 108-95.
The difference was maybe my best night for bonuses ever for me as I added points for calling the rounds for KO's by Prograis, Donaire, and Ajajba.

Boxing Challenge: The "Monster" at the end of this book!

A big boxing weekend brought to you by your friends at DAZN with seven of the eight challenge fights being televised on their streaming service.

The performance of the day came early Sunday morning from Yokohama Japan where the "Monster" Naoya Inoue won the first bout in the bantamweight tournament for the World Boxing Super Series when he destroyed former WBA champion Juan Carlos Payano in just one minute, leaving Payano supine on the floor and moving Inoue to the semi-finals with hardly taking a punch.
The post title comes from the beloved Sesame Street book that I enjoyed so much as a child and Ryan and Rachel did as well- Grover starring in "The Monster at the end of this book"

I only see two fighters in the tourney that have a chance against Inoue and it's not the tournament's top seed-WBA champion Ryan Burnett, who I think is meat on a platter against the Monster.
IBF champion Emmanuel Rodriguez was very impressive in winning his title on the road over England's Paul Butler and talent-wise, if not experience-wise, Rodriguez could match up well, and should Rodriguez defeat Australia's Jason Moloney, he'll get his chance against Inoue.
On the other side of the bracket, WBO champ Zolani Tete has the type of style that could trouble Inoue-IF he can box for all twelve rounds without getting hit.
Good luck with that, but Tete could make a potential Inoue bout interesting, if not exciting.

In the other WBSS bout from the junior welterweights, WBA champion Kiryl Relikh won a unanimous decision over his mandatory contender and former IBF champion Eduard Troyanovsky.
No knockdowns scored and I had Relikh winning 116-112 or 8-4 in rounds.
Relikh moves to the semi-finals and will face the winner of top-seeded Regis Prograis vs former WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan.

Another WBSS note, I'm a big fan of the tournament and the setup, but I'm still critical of the bracketing.
In the WBSS, the top seed (should they win in round one) faces the third seed (should they win) with the second seed facing the fourth, should things fall according to seeding.
In no other sport is a tournament set up this way and you are better off being the second seed than the top seed-Not the way things should be.

On Saturday afternoon, YouTube showed one of the better fighters in the world as Thailand's Srisaket Sor Rungvisai retained his WBC junior bantamweight belt in front of his countrymen with a unanimous decision over tough, but outclassed Iran Diaz of Mexico.
I had Rungvisai a 119-109 winner and I expected Rungvisai to face Juan Francisco Estrada next in what would be a rematch of their exciting fight from earlier this year that Rungvisai won by majority decision.
However, IBF champion Jerwin Ancajas was in attendance with his matchmaker Sean Gibbons in Thailand and rumors are that Rungvisai's next bout could be a unification bout vs Ancajas, who drew with Alejandro Santiago two weeks to retain his title.
Perhaps one more "Super Fly" card could be made with Rungvisai-Ancajas unifying, Estrada against Santiago in the co-feature to determine the number one contender for the new unified champion and maybe a fight for the continuing comeback of Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez?

DAZN bought the rights to the WBSS, but their main tenant is Eddie Hearn and Hearn's Matchroom Boxing, who presented a four-fight card that exceeded expectations as far action.

The main event saw Jessie Vargas receive his second majority draw in a row in a surprisingly good fight against Thomas Dulorme.
Dulorme, who had previously failed in various attempts to raise his stature, was knocked down in the tenth and appeared to be on his way to a loss, but won the 11th on my card and scored a flash knockdown of Vargas with seconds to go in the fight to win the 12th 10-8 and pull the win out 113-112.
The knockdown gave Dulorme a draw as well, as two cards scored the draw with the knockdown, so getting dropped cost Vargas a unanimous decision.

In another match that proved to be more of a battle than expected, IBF light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev made his first defense a successful one against undefeated, but lightly matched Callum Johnson of Great Britain.
The night looked to be a short one for Johnson when Beterbiev sent him to the floor late in round one. but Johnson shockingly dropped Beterbiev in the second and things looked to be on their way to a war.
They only looked that way as Beterbiev ripped a nasty cut over Johnson's eye in round three before finishing him off with a right hand that looked like it traveled about a foot to finish him off for good.
Beterbiev against anyone would seem to be a good fight, but with HBO"s departure from the game, a Dmitry Bivol bout would be the one that is not only possible but exciting as well.

Danny Roman defended his WBA junior featherweight title with a tenth-round knockout of England's Gavin McDonnell.
I had Roman ahead 6-3 in rounds after nine before he knocked McDonnell down in the tenth, McDonnell was able to get up, but the referee called the fight off in an excellent decision.
Roman is about as solid of a technically strong fighter as you'll find and unification fights against Rey Vargas (WBC/Golden Boy) or Issac Dogboe (WBO/Top Rank) would be interesting 50/50 fights, if
the business of boxing doesn't get in the way.

Jarrell Miller blew away a washed-up Tomasz Adamek in a squash match that few even Miller wanted to see.
Miller badly hurt the former light-heavy and cruiserweight champion in the opening round, but the bell saved Adamek. who wouldn't be saved a second time when an uppercut finished off the mismatch.
Miller could be in the mix for an April date with Anthony Joshua for his three titles.

In the Boxing Challenge, I scored ten points to Ramon Malpica's nine for the weekend to move my lead to 159-136

Boxing Challenge:Valdez outslugs Quigg

In yet another network counterprogramming
adventure-ESPN faced off with Showtime with titles on the line in the main event on both networks.

ESPN's card featured Oscar Valdez defending his WBO featherweight title against himself as Scott Quigg weighed in three pounds overweight and could not win the title.
Valdez could have lost it though with a defeat that would cause his title to become vacant, but in a fight that was fun to watch, but felt like an anti-climax, Valdez won a unanimous decision to retain his title.
Give both fighters plenty of credit (in the ring), both fought gallantly through injuries as Quigg's nose was broken giving him a look of an NBA player wearing a mask to protect a broken nose and Valdez fought half the bout with a broken jaw that forced his corner to keep his mouthpiece in to avoid the pain of taking the gumshield in and out.
I scored Valdez a 116-113 winner (7-4-1 in rounds), which was a little closer than the scorecards.
The fight was action-filled, but the actions of Quigg (who I've always liked) and his camp in first missing weight that badly and then hamstringing Valdez/Top Rank/ESPN on terms to even allow the fight to happen at all, were less than honorable.
Quigg did fight through a stress fracture in his foot and to be fair that could have hurt his chances to make the weight, but Quigg was clearly the larger man in the bout.
Oscar Valdez rose a great deal in my eyes with this win as he overcame a size difference, dealt with outside the ring drama and dealt with a broken jaw and still managed to win the fight against a strong opponent.
It was a great fight that deserves a rematch, but I'm doubtful that we'll see it unless Valdez has no other options (which might be the case with the three other featherweight champs Gary Russell, Leo Santa Cruz and Lee Selby all being with PBC).

The co-feature saw Erick DeLeon battle to a majority draw with Andy Vences in a fight with two undefeated prospects.
I scored it 95-95, so I was more than fine with the decision.
Vences seemed a bit quicker, DeLeon threw the harder shots, a draw was good enough for me...

Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Mikey Garcia won his fourth divisional title via a unanimous decision over Sergey Lipinets to lift the IBF junior welterweight title in Texas.
Garcia wasn't as effective at the higher weight despite putting Lipinets on the floor in the seventh round and it was more workmanlike than spectacular in the victory.
I scored Garcia a 118-109 winner (10-2 with a knockdown), but in my opinion, Garcia would be better suited to return to 135, where not only is he more effective, but he has bigger fights there against Vasyl Lomachenko, Jorge Linares (rumors are flying that Lomachenko-Linares in May is close to getting signed!) or Robert Easter than at 140 where you are just beginning to see the titles filled from Terence Crawford's move up to 147.
There seem to be some fighters at junior welterweight that might develop into stars (Jose Ramirez and Regis Prograis seem to have the best chance of doing that or Amir Imam should he upset Ramirez next weekend), but they sure aren't there yet and other than collecting belts that he won't defend, I don't seem any real advantage to hanging around junior welterweight for Garcia, who has built his career on beating good fighters with flaws and has yet to face someone that might have an even chance of defeating him.

In Showtime's other bout, one of the worst decision's of 2017 was remedied as Kiryl Relikh shutout (on my card) Rances Barthelemy to win the vacant WBA junior welterweight title.
The two fought last year in a title eliminator that saw a decision so bad that the Hamburglar was out as Barthelemy took an awful decision.
The judges this time got it right in the mandated rematch as Rellikh dominated the fight against Barthelemy.
I'm not sure Relikh is a star in the making, but his walk forward style could make some fun fights at 140.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored four points on Saturday.
I received two points each from Mikey Garcia and Oscar Valdez, while Ramon earned two from Valdez and one each from Garcia and Kiryl Relikh.
I lead the challenge 41-33.