Boxing Challenge: Canelo shuts out Charlo

     Few gave junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo much of a chance of leaping two weight divisions and troubling super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez and Charlo lived down to those expectations in landing only seventy-one punchesand losing every round in one of the most timid big fight performances that you'll see as Alvarez retained his titles by unanimous decision.

Alvarez knocked Charlo down in the seventh round and was never threatened by Charlo in winning every round on my card (120-107) and dominating on the official cards of 119-108, and two judges at 118-109.

The overhand right that landed in the seventh dropped Charlo to one knee and looked to be the beginning of the end for Charlo but he managed to survive the fight and some of the final few rounds were the best work for him. although it wasn't enough to win a round on my card.

Alvarez has been mandated by the WBC to face mandatory contender David Benavidez next, so unless he wants to give up one of his four titles and undisputed status, Benavidez would be next in a fight that many, including myself, would love to see.

Talk in recent days has involved Alvarez in a potential fight against another undisputed champion, welterweight Terence Crawford but that's unlikely for reasons beyond David Benavidez.

Alvarez spoke after the fight with disinterest in a potential Crawford fight with the sort of disinterest that a younger Canelo used to discuss fights against Gennady Golovkin.

Canelo is a businessman, if he speaks that way about a fight/fighter he's not interested in fighting them anytime soon

As for Charlo, who is no longer the undisputed champion at 154 pounds as the WBO stripped him as soon as the bell rang to start this fight for understandably taking more money to face Canelo than fighting mandatory challenger and now WBO champion Tim Tszyu, I'm not sure what can be done after such a timid effort from the supposed Lion.

He holds three titles at junior middleweight with three mandatories that are overdue but not big box office- WBA Israil Madrimov, WBC Charles Conwell, and IBF Bakhram Murtazaliev.

A move to middleweight would normally make sense but his brother holds the WBC title and only WBA champion Erislandy Lara of the remaining champions would be an easy fight to make but again not for a big check.

Tim Tszyu would be a viable option but unless Charlo would be willing to travel to Australia, some of the luster has been taken away from that fight I would think.

The biggest fight could have been against Terence Crawford and the two had been jawing on social media even before Crawford's win over Errol Spence but Crawford seems to have ruled Charlo since he no longer holds all four titles and with his marketability damaged for now.

Jermell Charlo seems to have cashed in for a payday that I cannot blame him for taking but I'm not sure that I see a major fight in his future and he may not be satisfied with regular defenses as a champion.

I wrote that the junior middleweight fight between Jesus Ramos and Erickson Lubin was an almost guaranteed barnburner and added the almost as an off-handed insurance policy.

Of course, the fight was dull with neither man really willing to step up the pace and most thinking Ramos deserved the nod (I scored 116-112 for Ramos) but it was Lubin with the unanimous decision win at 117-111 (awful), 116-112 (terrible), and 115-113 (maybe if you give Lubin every remotely close round).

The cards were bad but Ramos allowed Lubin to hang around and it wasn't a good fight to order a rematch.

Mario Barrios pulled a mild upset to win a minor WBC title that is likely to become the full title should Terence Crawford leave the division in his defeat of former WBA champion Yordenis Ugas.

Barrios closed the right eye of Ugas, who had suffered a broken orbital bone around the same eye in his most recent fight, a loss to Errol Spence, and dropped him in the second and twelfth rounds.

The second-round knockdown was a flash knockdown from a Barrios jab but Ugas was in trouble in the last round with the knockdown and an additional point deduction for spitting out his mouthpiece in the final round as the veteran attempted to survive to the final bell.

Barrios won by scores of 118-107 times two and 117-11.

Barrios fought as well as I've seen him although how much of that was due to the fading Ugas will wait to be determined until Barrios fights again and while I still don't think he was deserving of the opportunity, give Barrios full credit for taking advantage of it.

Earlier in the day, Jai Opetaia retained his IBF cruiserweight title for the first time in London when Opetaia crushed Jordan Thompson in four rounds.

Thompson did what he could and came to fight but this was all Opetaia, who was the stronger man and after round one bullied Thompson into submission with knockdowns in rounds three and four.

It was a devastating outing for Opetaia, who hopefully will have a rematch with Mairis Breidis in his next fight after their excellent first fight.

Otto Wallin won a split decision over Murat Gassiev in Turkey in their twelve-round heavyweight tilt.

I haven't seen this so not much to write about Wallin's victory.

Boxing Challenge 

TRS: 153 Pts (3)

Ramon Malpica: 139 Pts (2)

Vince Samano: 107 Pts (2)

Boxing Challenge: One Punch Knockout Night for Davis,Inoue

  The boxing Saturday was filled with world title defenses, title contenders returning to the ring, and two of the most devastating one-punch knockouts that you'll see.

Let's start with the final card of the evening with PBC putting together a pay-per-view from San Antonio, Texas, and a fight that has been reported to be quite an action-packed affair.

Editors Note: As of this writing, I have not seen any of the PPV cards yet, so I'm just reporting the results. When I have a chance to see and score them, I'll come back and edit my scorecard with thoughts for posterity.

In the main event, Gervonta Davis took away Leo Santa Cruz's WBA junior lightweight title and kept his own minor title by a crunching sixth-round knockout that left Santa Cruz out cold for a period of time and will be a contender for knockout of the year.

The fight was noted to be fought on mostly even terms before the left uppercut (that I have seen!) that will threaten Alexander Povetkin's knockout of Dillian Whyte for the KO of the year.

Davis claims that he will keep both championships (Which I don't have an issue with if he can continue to make the weight), but in the past, the WBA has claimed that they will not allow a champion to hold two of their titles, but organizations in boxing tend to make these decisions on the fly and according to the fighter or promoters so who knows how the WBA will rule on this.

In the undercard matches.

Mario Barrios kept his minor title over Ryan Karl by 6th round knockout

Regis Prograis stopped Juan Heraldez in three rounds

Isaac Cruz knocked out Diego Magdaleno in the first round...

From London's television studio, Oleksander Usyk received what he was looking for from Derek Chisora- A good twelve-round test as a heavyweight and moved to the future with a unanimous decision victory.

Chisora started well in the first few rounds and had his moments late, but Usyk rallied after the early stages and banked rounds to build a solid lead on the scorecards.

No knockdowns, although Usyk did wobble Chisora a bit near the end of the seventh round.

I scored Usyk a 116-112 winner, so the verdict was a fair one.

Usyk is the mandatory contender in the WBO for champion Anthony Joshua, but could take step aside money for Joshua's unification fight with Tyson Fury, or should he refuse to move away, he could fight for a vacated title from Joshua.

The co-feature saw a mild upset as George Kambosos won a split decision over former IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby in an IBF lightweight eliminator to earn a mandatory title shot next year against Teofimo Lopez.

The thoughts were as wide as the scorecards as experts from England (Selby) and Australia (Kambosos) were each puzzled by a split decision and complained about the judges not favoring their man.

I thought Kambosos landed the harder punches against the smoother Selby and deserved a close call- 115-113 on my scorecard.

On ESPN Plus from the Las Vegas bubble, Top Rank featured the "Monster" Naoya Inoue in his debut for the company, and Inoue shined as hoped with a one-punch knockout of tough Australian contender Jason Moloney.

Moloney fought on almost even terms for the first three rounds, but Inoue began to land well in the fourth and fifth before a left hook sent Moloney to the mat in round six.

Inoue's right hand ended the fight in the seventh with a KO that would have received far more attention had Gervonta Davis not scored his highlight-reel knockout later in the evening.

Inoue could face WBO champion John Riel Casimero next in a unification fight that was scheduled earlier this year before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an untelevised bout, former cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev made his heavyweight debut with a first-round KO of Sefer Sefari.

Gassiev scored an early knockdown with Seferi rising unsteadily and the referee stopping the fight.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 13-9 on the day and boosted my lead to 153-144.

Boxing Challenge;Usyk wins WBSS!!

Finally, we have a four belt champion and the winner of the first World Boxing Super Series as Oleksandr Usyk gave the performance of his career with a dazzling and dominant victory over Murat Gassiev in Moscow via a unanimous decision.

Usyk's win annexed the WBA and IBF cruiserweight titles from Gassiev added them to the WBO and WBC championships that he already held and left no doubt that he is the best cruiserweight in the world.
I thought the fight was a pick em level fight, but I leaned Gassiev by a hair.
I was quickly proven wrong as the speed and quickness of Usyk left Gassiev befuddled and confused for the evening and on the occasion that the power-hitting Gassiev did connect, Usyk took those hammers extremely well in winning a 118-110 decision on my card.
Usyk was the tournament's top seed and won all three of his tournament events in his opponent's home country defeating Marco Huck in Germany, Mairis Briedis in Latvia and then Gassiev in Russia in the final.

The rumored next fight for Usyk is Brit Tony Bellew, a former cruiserweight champ with two wins over former heavyweight champion David Haye in Bellew's last two fights.
Hopefully, that fight will be at cruiserweight, where it would be nice to see Usyk make a few defenses of the unified title and not have the title break back into four pieces after a move to heavyweight.
I'd like to see Usyk in a rematch vs Mairis Bredis, who Usyk defeated in the semi's by a narrow majority decision before he leaves for the bigger division.
I scored their fight a draw so this would be far from a sure thing for Usyk.

As for the WBSS, they couldn't have asked for more from their first tournament.
They had every major cruiser and most of the best in the world, were able to put together exciting and compelling bouts and unified all the titles.
Every tourney won't be able to do that, as their super middleweight bracket has shown and they won't be able to attract all the champions every time, as their 2018-19 brackets have shown.
The cruiserweight champions were all European attractions, so there was not a need for an American presence- eventually, they will need one.
The WBSS still will need to prove that they will be able to bring the best fighters in from the three main American promoters (they have yet to pull a major star from Golden Boy, PBC or Top Rank), and they have to hope Eddie Hearn's streaming service DAZN catches on as season two's contests will be exclusive to that outlet, but still I have to say the WBSS is an early success story, let's hope that this can be sustained.

On HBO, the main event was the return of exciting banger Jaime Munguia in the first defense of his WBO junior middleweight title against former champion Liam Smith in Las Vegas.
I haven't had a chance to watch Munguia's unanimous decision win, so I'll edit this later when I have.

Alberto Machado won every round over Rafael Mensah in the dull opener to retain a minor title.
Machado was arguably the most screwed over fighter by the WBA after he won their top title with a stunning KO of favored Jezreel Corrales, only to be dropped to their "regular' title in order to have the top "vacant" title (which really wasn't) filled by Gervonta Davis.
Machado knocked Mensah down at the end of the first round and had he had a few more seconds, might have ended the fight there.
Instead, we received eleven more rounds of a tedious beating.
I scored Machado a 120-107 winner.

In the challenge, Ramon Malpica scored 4 points to my 3 and cut my lead to 25 at 115-90...

Boxing Challenge:Gassiev guns down Dorticos

Photo Credit: World Boxing Super Series

For the second Saturday in a row, the World Boxing Super Series came through with a thriller in the cruiserweight division and for the same second Saturday in a row, a major network came through with two lopsided duds instead of finding a few dollars to show the country the fight that was worth the time to watch..

Let us start with the positive as Murat Gassiev took away Yunier Dorticos' WBA cruiserweight title and added it to his IBF belt with a savage 12th round knockout in the second World Boxing Super Series semi-final and punched his ticket to the finals in Saudi Arabia in May.
Waiting for Gassiev will be the holder of the other two cruiserweight titles in WBC/WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk, who will be entering that bout off his own action-packed win over Mairis Breidis in what looks to be one of the best bouts that boxing can offer, but in this fight Gassiev and Dorticos put together their own early contender for fight of the year (I know, it's early as I said last week!), but this one stands on its own from Usyk-Briedis as a different kind of top notch battle..
Usyk-Briedis had more sustained action at a slightly faster pace, but Gassiev-Dorticos showcased heavier punches with the majority of the shots having "Bad Intentions" as Mike Tyson used to say.
I'm not saying one was preferable to the other, both were very good, yet different.

For four rounds, Dorticos appeared to have been prepared surprisingly well to pull the upset as he switched plans, attacked Gassiev and forced Gassiev to back up where even though Gassiev scored his share of points, it was Dorticos controlling the pace and I gave the Cuban three of the first four rounds with almost all being arguable, it had the feel of one of those fights that could have three widely divergent scorecards.
However, when round five started, the fight changed for good- it was Gassiev forcing his way forward, it was Dorticos backing up and from then on, I would give Dorticos just one round.
Dorticos scored his share, similar to Gassiev early in the fight, but it was Gassiev with the "ring generalship" and I had Gassiev ahead 7-4 entering the final round.
Gassiev was slightly ahead (leading by just one point on two of the cards entering the final round, so Dorticos was not without a chance), but had seemingly hurt Dorticos in both the 10 and 11th and left me marveling at the quality of Dorticos' chin,so there were decent odds that he wasn't going to try to leave this to the scorecards despite the still dangerous power of Dorticos.
With a minute to go, Dorticos finally cracked as a Gassiev left hook dropped him to the floor.
The game Cuban rose but quickly found himself back there after a Gassiev flurry that was more powerful due to the faded condition of Dorticos than anything Gassiev landed and to be fair, you could have made an excellent argument to end the fight then and there.
Dorticos rose again and this time, he was hit and hard with a right hand that might have stopped a bull that sent him sailing to the floor, half in the ring/ half on the ring apron where the fight ended with just eight seconds to go.

A terrific fight and I'm really looking forward to May for the cruiserweight finals between Gassiev and Usyk from Saudi Arabia!

It's a good thing that the WBSS came through because as noted above, for the second week in a row, no American television outlet picked up the cruiserweight semi-final, but one of the big three did have time and money to put together a slop card of squash matches for your viewing "entertainment".
Last week, it was Golden Boy and HBO wasting my time after a great cruiserweight bout and this week, it was the turn of Top Rank and ESPN to set up what some call showcase bouts and what I prefer to call squash matches on national television.

Don't get me wrong, I can live with squash matches occasionally, if that's what it takes to keep a fighter active and if the fighters in question (this time they are Gilberto Ramirez and Jerwin Ancajas) want to fight four times a year, a squash match once a year isn't so bad.
What you don't want to see is when fighters fall into the PBC trap, when you fight once a year to 18 months and then every other fight is a squash match (Yeah, I'm talking to you,Keith Thurman), Top Rank actually has promoters that know the game, so it may not be the case this time, but it never hurts to keep an eye on all of them- calling it straight without bias.

In the main event from Corpus Christi Texas, Gilberto Ramirez defended his WBO super middleweight title with a sixth round stoppage of Ghana's Habib Ahmed, who came in as a somewhat late substitution, but without one notable name on his record and as an unknown quantity,
I had Ramirez winning every round before the stoppage, which seemed inevitable, once we saw what Ahmed had, which was not nearly enough to trouble the talented Ramirez.
Ahmed tried, but was out of his league against the physically larger and stronger Ramirez and when referee Lawrence Cole doing his typically awful job refereeing (Cole is the worst part of watching boxing from Texas and the story that could be written just on the Cole family in Texas boxing, I'm getting mad/ill thinking about it) and allowing Ahmed to get his head rolling around his shoulders like a bobblehead with a broken spring from Ramirez right hands, it took Ahmed's corner physically bullying their way past another member of the Texas boxing commission (no word on HIS relation to the Cole family) to toss in the towel before the seemingly disappointed Cole (I guess he was waiting to see Ahmed be hit and do the Ric Flair flip over the turnbuckle before calling this disaster off) finally ended the fight.
Ramirez does have some options for his 2018 campaign, he could rematch Jesse Hart, which would be OK after their great first fight, or he could see who wins the World Boxing Super Series (The WBA champ will come out of the tourney whether it is current champ George Groves or the bracket winner) at Super Middleweight (As exciting as the Cruisers have been, entering the semis, the 168 first rounders were relatively tame) or he could even think about moving to 175.
The other champs at 168 are with PBC (IBF Caleb Truax and WBC David Benavidez) and might not be able to be made although Ramirez-Benavidez might be my favorite fight to be made at the weight class if I could make just one.

In the other squash, er co-feature, IBF junior bantamweight champion Jerwin Ancajas continued his move up the 115-pound division with a 10th round knockout of Israel Gonzalez.
I had Ancajas winning every round and was never threatened in the slightest by Gonzalez
The worst part of this fight?
It wasn't Gonzalez, who like Ahmed against Ramirez tried to win, but was outclassed, it was the announcing table, who used the name Manny Pacquiao more than the name Jerwin Ancajas.
I know that they are both from the Phillippines, Pacquiao is the childhood hero of Ancajas and is involved with his management/promotional team, but man was it overdone.
I get that you are trying to make a connection, but let's keep in mind to make the name Jerwin Ancajas remembered as well and not the lazy take of "Friend of and fights like Manny".
Ancajas was still impressive in victory and I would like to see him tested against the elite of the division.

In Japan, Daigo Higa retained his WBC flyweight with a first-round KO of former world champ Moises Fuentes with one hit to the body (although not one hit straight to the heart, Rolling Stones fans).
I'm a rider of the Higa bandwagon and I'd love to see him against some of the contenders at 115 as well.


In the boxing challenge, I regained the lead from Ramon Malpica at 14-12 after I scored seven points to Ramon's 4 this weekend.
I scored 2 points each from wins by Gassiev, Higa, Ancajas and one point from Ramirez.
Ramon scored 2 points from Higa's win with 1 each from wins by Ramirez and Ancajas.

Boxing Challenge:Machado upsets Corrales

The boxing challenge for the weekend starts in Verona, New York with two bouts from HBO that had varying intensities.

In the main event, Alberto Machado won the WBA junior lightweight title from Jezreel Corrales (TRS #3) when Machado landed a left hand while eating one from Corrales, dropping
Corrales and surviving himself.
The eighth round knockout allowed Machado to win a title that Corrales could not retain after missing weight by multiple pounds at the weigh-in.
WBA rules stated that after an agreement to keep the fight going that if Machado won, he would become champion and the title would become vacant with a Corrales win.
Machado had won just one round on my card (the sixth, where he should have been given a 10-8 round for a knockdown that was not called) before the abrupt victory.
The lean Machado will be an interesting addition to the 130 pound title picture with WBC champ Miguel Berchelt as a possible opponent should he defeat the gritty veteran Orlando Salido in December or the IBF champion (decided on the same card in December as Tevin Farmer faces Kenichi Ogawa for the title that Gervonta Davis sacrificed on the scale in August) for the slot of best in the division other than WBO champion Vasyl Lomachenko.

The co-feature saw the return of Demetrius Andrade (TRS #3 at junior middle) moving up to middleweight against undefeated and untested Alantez Fox.
In a bout that rivaled any Guillermo Rigondeaux or Erislandy Lara fight for boredom, Andrade won every round on my card, but the seventh and took a unanimous decision.
Fox scored a knockdown in the seventh that really was a tangled foot issue.
I scored Andrade a 118-109 winner and I hope we see him against better challengers next time out.

HBO showed a good bantamweight bout on tape delay from Belfast, Northern Ireland as Ryan Burnett unified his IBF title with the WBA belt with a unanimous decision over Zhanat Zhakiyanov (TRS #3).
I scored Burnett a 117-111 winner after the fight was even after six rounds, but saw Burnett dominate the second half of the fight.
I'm sure we will see Burnett debut in the next edition of the TRS ratings.

In the final quarter-final of the World Boxing Super Series, Murat Gassiev (TRS #2) retained his IBF cruiserweight title in Newark, New Jersey with a body shot in round three that dropped Krzysztof Wlodarczyk for the count.
Gassiev pushed Wlodarczyk around the ring and from the opening bell, the verdict was clear that Gassiev could pick his round of victory,
Gassiev moves to the semi-finals against Yunier Dorticos in what should be a thrilling battle early in 2018 and might be establishing the early leader for 2018 fight of the year.
Next Saturday will have the final quarter-final in the super middleweights between Jurgen Brahmer and Rob Brant and following that, I'll have a look and some thoughts about the initial round of the WBSS.

From Tokyo for a minor title, Ryota Murata avenged one of the worst decisions in 2017 when Hassan N'Dam could not answer the bell for round eight in their middleweight fight.
I had Murata ahead on the cards and dominated the fight seen live on ESPN2 at 7;30 AM.
My issue is why the WBA made this for their "regular" title, when the organization that claims they want to reduce their titles, could have swallowed this one when Gennady Golovkin defeated Daniel Jacobs in March?
There is a manner to force a fight between the champion and a top challenger- it's called being the number one contender and that doesn't mean they are a champion too.

In an untelevised bout in the challenge, Daigo Higa (TRS #3) retained his WBC flyweight title with a seventh round knockout of Thomas Massson on the Murata-N'Dam undercard.
Higa has won by KO in all 14 of his pro bouts.

In the Boxing Challenge-

I earned three points for the Murat Gassiev win (a bonus point for getting the round correct), two points for the Daigo Higa KO win, one point for the wins by Ryan Burnett , Demetrius Andrade, and Ryota Murata and I missed on Alberto Machado's victory.

Ramon added two points for Gassiev's win and one each for the Andrade and Higa wins while missing on Machado,Murat and Burnett's wins.

The Challenge now stands at 154-137.
Don't forget to listen to Fightheads Monday at 8 EST for talk about these and other boxing issues!!

Gassiev outpoints Lebedev,Saunders wins-Boxing Challenge

The Boxing Challenge rolled on through Europe as all four fights from the challenge were overseas.
Ramon Malpica and I each added three points for the weekend to bring the total to 136-112.

Murat Gassiev won the IBF cruiserweight title with a split decision win over WBA/IBF champ Denis Lebedev in Moscow.
No,that's not a typo,Lebedev applied for a waiver with the WBA to not put that belt on the line,which the WBA ridiculously granted despite Gassiev being ranked by the organization and the fight being at the division weight.
I'm a fan of titles,but this was just idiotic as Lebedev keeps his title despite the loss.
The fight was a good and close one that I scored 115-112 for Gassiev.
Gassiev dropped Lebedev with a body shot in the fifth round and was the harder puncher to offset the busier Lebedev.
Ramon and I each added one point for the Gassiev win.

However,the knockout of the weekend came on the same card in Moscow.
I sometimes criticize sanctioning bodies for rating fighters from countries where their true mettle is not tested until they hit the big time,but occasionally you can hit oil.
This strike came with Julius Indongo,who had never fought outside of Namibia (which will never be confused with even a middling boxing country) knocked Eduard Troyanovsky silly in less than a minute with a right hand that won Indongo the IBF junior welterweight title.
I'm not sure if Indongo is a star in the making (I had never even heard of Indongo before signing for the fight) or a one punch wonder like Bredis Prescott was when he starched Amir Khan,but what a shot!!!



I haven't watched Billy Joe Saunders and his unanimous decision win to retain his WBO middleweight title over Artur Akakov yet,but it's been reported to be a very close fight against an opponent with less than strong credentials.
Saunders defeated Andy Lee for the title a year ago and this was his first defense and wobbled past against a hand-picked opponent.
Saunders seems to have little interest in fighting top notch foes,although he is quite active in talking about fighting them,as he has turned down huge paydays to fight Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez.
The WBO needs to look into this and have Saunders fight someone soon.
Ramon and each added two points for the win.

Editor's Note: I have now watched the fight and scored Saunders a 115-112 winner.

In Moscow,I haven't seen this fight as of now either,but Denis Shafikov shaded Richard Commey via split decision to earn Shafikov a title fight at lightweight against IBF champion Robert Easter,who had won the vacant belt in his last fight via split decision over Commey.
Ramon and I each picked Commey for no points...