Boxing Challenge: Joshua ends Ngonnou in two!

    Francis Ngannou proved a lot in his split decision loss to Tyson Fury last year but what he may have proven yesterday is that Fury either took him very lightly or the WBC champion is past his best days.

While we will wait to see that for sure in May with Fury's fight with Oleksandr Usyk coming then, Ngannou definitely proved that he is out of his league against a prepared and motivated top heavyweight as former champion Anthony Joshua knocked Ngannou down in the first and second before a right hand from hell ended the fight with a definite contender for knockout of the year.

Ngannou may given the fight of his life to an underprepared and fairly inactive Fury but he was no match for Joshua, who was fighting for the fourth time in a year and looked razor-sharp against a relative novice in the sport.

Ngannou was completely puzzled by Joshua's jab and had no options for getting inside on the taller Briton.

The Joshua dispatching of Ngannou likely ends Ngannou's boxing forays for the time being as he is likely to return to the MMA league where he is the heavyweight champion.

As for Joshua, he's clearly the world's third-best heavyweight and his increased activity has sharpened his skills.

In the co-feature, Joseph Parker won a minor title and more importantly, will move into the WBO mandatory contender position by majority decision over Zhilei Zhang.

Zhang scored both knockdowns in the fight in the third and eighth rounds but was reluctant to follow up and gave away the final four rounds by refusing to throw punches allowing Parker to peck away to pile up points.

The fight was far from thrilling but there will be a rematch as contractually stipulated should Parker earn the victory.

The judges' scores for Parker were 115-111 114-112 (same as mine) and even at 113-113.

Before Anthony Joshua's win, the fighter of the night may have Israil Madrimov, who annihilated Magomed Kurbanov in stopping him in five rounds to win the vacant WBA junior middleweight title.

I picked Kurbanov, who had the better wins and competition, and Madrimov had been out of the ring for eighteen months, which made me lean towards the upset.

Madrimov couldn't miss with his left hand and he dominated every aspect of the fight and while the stoppage may have been a bit early, it was a matter of time before the fight ended as Madrimov was that dominant.

Madrimov needs to fight more often and be seen more but he has the talent to be a future star.

I haven't had time to watch Rey Vargas retaining his WBC featherweight title over Nick Ball. 
Ball scored knockdowns in the eighth and eleventh rounds with the cards reading 114-113 for Vargas, 116-110 for Ball, and even at 113.

Ball was expected to face WBA champion Raymond Ford, if he had won, on the Matchroom vs Queensbury card later this year but Ford was on social media with the comment saying he thought Ball won, and he is still willing to fight Ball on that card.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 29 Pts(2)

Ramon Malpica: 28 Pts (1)

Vince Samano: 15 Pts (0)

Boxing Challenge: Canelo decisions Ryder, Hamburglar visits Russia.

    Arguably boxing's biggest star returned to the ring after a nine-month absence and did so in his home country for the first time in several years as the undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez retained his four titles with a unanimous decision victory over John Ryder in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Alvarez dominated the entire fight and knocked Ryder down with a right hand along the ropes in the fifth round but was unable to finish the rugged but outgunned Englishman.

Alvarez won on all three scorecards going away by scores of 120-108 and 118-11 x2, the latter of which was the same as my score.

Ryder's nose bled badly throughout the fight but other than after the fight's sole knockdown, Ryder was never seriously hurt by Alvarez.

However, that didn't mean that Ryder didn't take a pounding from Alvarez as he definitely took one.

Alvarez announced after the win that he intended to pursue a rematch vs WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol, who defeated him via unanimous decision in 2022.

From what I've seen from Canelo since the Bivol loss in wins over Gennady Golovkin and Ryder, I'm dubious of his chances in a rematch.

Alvarez is still among the best fighters in the sport but he does appear to have lost a half-step from his peak and he might be better suited to the challenges of David Benavidez or David Morrell in his own yard rather than try again to move up to try and catch the mobile Bivol.

In two other bouts that I have not watched yet on the Alvarez-Ryder card:

Julio Cesar Martinez retained his WBC flyweight title with an eleventh-round stoppage on Ronel Batista and former WBC light heavyweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk stopped Ricards Bolotniks in six rounds.

Two times in recent months, undefeated fighters have left Eddie Hearn's Matchroom promotion in order to sign contracts with Boxxer promotions and their carrier Sky Sports.

And for the second time in a row, those fighters have notched victories after leaving but left observers bored with their bouts and unimpressed with their performances.

First, it was WBO cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie's boring decision win over David Light in March and now it's light heavyweight contender Joshua Buatsi, who won a dull unanimous decision over unbeaten and unknown Pawel Stepien of Poland in Birmingham England.

The fight could be best summed up as such; Stepien was not interested in taking any chances on offense and Buatsi was content to control the fight without any type of effort to end it.

Scores all for the former Olympic bronze medalist at 100-90, 98-92, and 97-94.

My scorecard was 99-91 for Buatsi, who will be the next mandatory contender for WBA champion Dmitry Bivol eventually but will have to show far more aggressiveness in that title attempt than he has expended in his last few bouts.

The Hamburglar arrived in Russia for the theft of the week as junior middleweight contenders Magomed Kurbanov and Michel Soro squared off in a title eliminator.

Kurbanov had three solid wins in his recent fights, a close decision that many thought Smith deserved (I scored Kurbanov a 115-113 winner), and wins over unbeaten Johan Gonzalez and former WBO champion Patrick Teixeira stamped him as the favorite over Soro, who had been controversially stopped by another top contender in Israil Madrimov, when a badly hurt Soro was nailed by multiple solid blows after the bell rang and the referee allowed Madrimov to continue to punch away.

The loss stood officially but the WBA ordered a rematch and in the third round, a vicious clash of heads forced a stoppage and a resulting no contest.

The WBA ordered a third fight but Madrimov had no interest in a third fight after being on his way to winning the first two bouts and having hi-jinks ensue, so Soro accepted a Kurbanov fight in a WBA eliminator.

So of course, in the first round, the two connected their heads with Kurbanov emerging with a long jagged cut over his left eye that bled profusely throughout the fight, and later in the fight, Soro opened another cut near the left eye, this one from a punch.

Soro moved forward and backed the counterpunching Kurbanov for most of the bout and controlled the second half of the fight and while I gave Kurbanov the final round, it was the only round that I gave him after the fourth round.

The judges' cards read 115-113 Soro (close to my 116-112 Soro card), 115-113 (Kurbanov, which maybe you could get to IF you gave every competitive round to Kurbanov), and a nutty 116-112 card for Kurbanov resulting in the home fighter getting the split decision win.

I would hope for a rematch but I'm doubtful one occurs unless ordered by the WBA.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 75 Pts (7)

Ramon Malpica:70 Pts (7)

Vince Samano:56 Pts (1)

Boxing Challenge: Canelo breaks down BJS

    For almost eight rounds, the super middleweight title unification fight was close (unless you were one of two judges) between Canelo Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders and seemed to be ramping up towards a dramatic ending in Arlington, Texas.

Alvarez ended all of that drama late in the eighth round when a crunching right undercut damaged the right eye of Saunders and as the round ended, Saunders' eye was inflating by the second.

Within the minute between rounds, Saunders's corner determined that the damage was too much for their fighter to continue and stopped the fight, which handed Alvarez the WBO title to add to the WBA and WBC championships that Alvarez held entering the fight.

Saunders was quite slippery and had some success against Canelo with my scorecard showing the battle even at 76 after eight rounds, but the eighth was Alvarez's best of the fight and with a damaged eye Saunders was clearly going to need a miracle as the scorecards had him trailing by two, four, and four points after eight.

Give Saunders credit for only stumbling a bit after taking a tremendous shot from Canelo and he was never even in mild trouble during the fight, but he didn't throw enough punches and going against a fighter like Canelo Alvarez when you aren't a big puncher you will need to win a decision and to win such a decision you may have to win 9-3 or 10-2 in rounds to win a 7-5 decision.

Saunders's eye socket is suspected to be broken and you have to wonder how Saunders will recover physically as after Kell Brook broke his eye socket against Gennady Golovkin, he broke it again against Errol Spence and was never the same fighter.

Canelo Alvarez called for the only champion that is left to defeat next in IBF champion Caleb Plant.

Plant fights for PBC and while you would think that Plant cannot make anything close to what he'd make to face Alvarez, PBC head Al Haymon has ways that make his fighters decide to work against their financial interest in the past, most notably, Jermall Charlo turning down seven million (twice his career-high at the time) to fight Demetrius Andrade on DAZN and Peter Quillin vacating his WBO middleweight title rather than fight Matt Korobov for a career-high 1.4 million (over three times his career-high purse at the time) for Roc Nation after the now-defunct company won a purse bid.

I could also see Haymon thinking that the missing title is what makes Plant valuable (he's right on that considering Plant's resume'), have Plant score another dominant victory over a non-entity (Plant has fought one fighter of top ten quality in Jose Uzcategui) in an attempt to increase Plant's value before he cashes in with a fight that he is likely to lose.

In other words, don't be surprised at all if Caleb Plant, the guy noted as "What else does he have to do" by Eddie Hearn, actually finds someone else to fight.

The co-feature saw WBO light flyweight champion Elwin Soto defeat former minimumweight champion, Katsunari Takayama, by ninth-round stoppage when our "favorite" referee Laurence Cole stopped the fight a bit early in my opinion.

I had Soto had ahead 76-75 (5-3 in rounds, with Soto losing a point in the first round for hitting after the bell) and Takayama was rallying on my card, winning three of the four previous to the ninth.

Soto could have a unification match with WBA champion Hiroto Kyoguchi soon as both fighters recently fought for the first time with Matchroom and what should be an almost guaranteed action battle.

Friday in Russia, Magomed Kurbanov won a unanimous decision over former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith in a fight that could have been scored for either combatant.

I scored Kurbanov a 115-113 winner, which was the same as two judges with the third a ridiculous 117-111 card, but the fight was extremely close and I wouldn't even offer a word should someone score Smith a close winner.

Smith landed plenty but didn't seem to hurt Kurbanov and these two are the type of solid back end of the top ten/twelve contenders that could fight five times and deliver five tight affairs.

Ramon Malpica outscored me four to three in the boxing challenge and cut my lead to 62-60.