Boxing Challenge: Ramirez stops Boesel, Kovalev returns.

   The remainder of the boxing weekend also was hosted in the state of California (as was the Charlo-Castano rematch) with DAZN and Golden Boy with a card from Ontario California and Triller returning with a PPV from the Inglewood Forum.

Golden Boy's main event was a squash match masquerading as a WBA title eliminator at light heavyweight as former WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez continued his wait for a shot at WBA champion Dmitry Bivol with a lopsided pounding of Germany's Dominic Boesel in a fourth-round stoppage that ended with Boesel down in a corner as the referee waved the fight to its conclusion.

Not much else to be said about this as Ramirez had Boesel retreating from the initial bell and it was clear that this fight would last as long as it took Ramirez to finish Boesel.

This was another WBA eliminator, which doesn't seem that bad on the surface- until you realize that this weekend's Joshua Buatasi-Craig Richards main event on DAZN is also a WBA eliminator in the division.

Ramirez is more than qualified to face Bivol now and hopefully unless Canelo Alvarez picks up his option for his rematch with Bivol, Ramirez will receive his shot next rather than get stuck against the Buatasi-Richards winner, which I have a funny feeling might be where Ramirez might be forced to make his next fight.

The co-feature was an action affair as lightweight prospect William Zepeda survived a stern test from veteran Rene Alvarado in a tight battle.

Give the credit to this one to Alvarado, who lost his fourth fight in a row but loses no credibility for losing this one and made a gallant stand against the younger and power-punching Zepeda as he matched him blow for blow for most of the fight.

Zepeda won the final three rounds on my scorecards as the older and naturally smaller Alvarado began to wilt just enough too to allow Zepeda to slide by with a 96-94 win on my card.

One judge saw it the same as I did with the other two a wider 97-93 and too large 98-92 call.

A good victory for Zepeda and a strong effort from Alvarado, who showed in defeat that he still has a little left in his career.

Triller had been away from the fight game for a while but while their return may not have been pay-per-view worthy, there were two interesting fights headlining their show.

In the main event, former light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev returned to the ring for the first time since his knockout loss to Canelo Alvarez in 2019 and won a unanimous decision in his debut at cruiserweight over previously undefeated Olympic bronze medalist Tervel Pulev.

The cruiserweight version of Kovalev doesn't fight like the feared bomber that ruled the light heavyweight division and should have received the decision against Andre Ward in their first fight but instead is a more mobile boxer that uses the jab to control the action, much as he did to some success in his loss to Canelo Alvarez.

Kovalev looked good against Pulev with his new style which should protect what has become a shaky chin in his latter years with three of his four losses coming by knockout (Ward in their rematch, Eleider Alvarez and Canelo Alvarez) and despite Pulev moving forward throughout the fight, the Kovalev jab kept Pulev at bay and off-balance.

I scored Kovalev a 97-93 winner, which was the same as one judge with the other two scoring Kovalev a 98-92 winner.

Kovalev instantly becomes the biggest name in a division that rarely possesses stars and when they do have them, they don't stay long.

Kovalev is going to be small for the division and I wonder how his power will fare against the top two fighters in the division in IBF champion Mairis Bredis or WBO champion Lawrence Okolie but should he receive a title shot in the future, it'll be arguably the most interesting fight in the division other than a Briedis-Okolie unification bout.

Former heavyweight title challenger Kubrat Pulev won a unanimous decision over journeyman Jerry Forrest in an occasionally fun fight with Pulev taking over after four rounds against a competitive but worn-out Forrest.

Forrest was entering this bout off a controversial loss to Michael Hunter that most thought he deserved the decision but Pulev is a solid top 10/15 fighter that is overmatched against the elite of the division but is a class above the Jerry Forrest types.

I scored Pulev the winner 98-92 which agreed with one judge as the other two saw Pulev as a 99-91 winner.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 79 Pts (7)

Vince Samano: 69 Pts  (5)

Ramon Malpica: 67 Pts (5) 

Boxing Challenge: Parker repeats against Chisora

 The boxing challenge finished up the 2021 season on Saturday with four fights and two of them loaded with action.

In London, Joseph Parker won a unanimous decision in his rematch with Derek Chisora in a fight that was a better one than their original but the story in defeat was the effort by Chisora, who easily could have cashed in at several times during the fight and yet battled through in one of the more courageous efforts that you'll see.

Parker would knock down Chisora in the seventh and in both the fourth and eighth rounds, Parker would drive Chisora into the ropes with Chisora using the ropes to stay upright and was rightfully scored knockdowns on both occasions.

On each occasion, Chisora would walk to a corner, anchor himself against the corner post, and wave Parker in and would then begin to fire enough wild punches to pull himself together to survive the round.

Parker was far more aggressive than in his first fight against Chisora and used the jab to set up the right hand rather than box off his back foot.

Parker's right uppercut was the key difference this time as it seemed that it found Chisora with every attempt and it was the uppercut that scored all three official knockdowns.

Parker won on all three cards and was closer than I expected ( 115-110, 115-111, and a surprising 114-112 card that would have seen Chisora win on one card without knockdowns) as my card had Parker winning 117-108.

Parker keeps himself in line for a future try at a title shot (Parker is ranked in the top five in three of the four organizations) while Chisora will continue to grab good paydays as a gatekeeper in the division.

DAZN returned in the evening with the final card of the year from Golden Boy with the main event that was much more entertaining than expected as Gilberto Ramirez earned the mandatory contender spot for WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol with a tenth round knockout over Yuneski Gonzalez.

No knockdowns in this one but plenty of toe-to-toe exchanges that were generally dominated by Ramirez with Gonzalez scoring enough to keep Ramirez honest and make the fight an entertaining one.

I had Ramirez well ahead in the fight at 88-84.

For Ramirez, it was an entertaining win and it does seem that the reluctant super-middleweight champion has developed into an aggressive light heavyweight and I'm looking forward to a Ramirez challenge of Dmitry Bivol.

On the undercard, Lamont Roach dominated Rene Alvarado and won a unanimous decision in a battle of top ten junior lightweights.

I scored Roach a 99-91 winner.

In Minneapolis on Fox, super middleweight David Morrell stopped Alantez Fox in four rounds in a fight that I haven't had time to watch yet.

Boxing Challenge: Ortiz derails the Mean Machine

    I'm going to divide the boxing recap into two portions since I am in the middle of watching the final few fights over the next few hours.

This post will cover the three fights from the two DAZN cards with the follow-up post covering the ESPN and Showtime cards from Top Rank and PBC respectively.

The main event of the Golden Boy card from Frisco Texas saw one of the two young welterweights that none of the elites of the division want to face stop his best opponent to date as Vergil Ortiz (Jaron Ennis is the other) stopped Egidijus Kavaliauskas in the eighth round with four knockdowns in the final round before referee Lawrence Cole ended the affair.

Ortiz dropped Kavaliauskas in the third round with a straight shot in close but the biggest news in this one was Kavaliauskas hurting Ortiz in the second round.

Give Ortiz credit for stemming the tide and proving some mettle against the power of a top ten welterweight like Kavaliauskas but it may have placed the thought into the minds of the welterweights rated above him that Ortiz can be hurt.

I had Ortiz ahead 68-64 at the time of the stoppage.

Ortiz is the number one rated contender in the WBO to champion Terence Crawford but the WBO has instead forced Crawford to negotiate with their second rated contender Shawn Porter.

I'm not complaining a bit about the prospect of Crawford-Porter, which would be a tremendous battle, but what's the point of being the number one contender if the sanctioning body mandates the champion fighting the number two guy?

I'm not sure what Ortiz does from here.

He could use more experience but Golden Boy doesn't really have any welterweights to test him and even if they did- should Ortiz fight someone that could cost him that number one rating?

What we found out about Vergil Ortiz against Kavaliauskas might be all we know until his eventual title challenge.

In the co-feature, Roger Gutierrez won a split decision over Rene Alvarado to retain the WBA minor title that means anything ( explained here) and win the third fight between the two.

This wasn't as exciting as their previous fighters as both fighters seemed a bit tentative against a fighter that knew them so well. and there were many lulls in the action.

In the end, the taller and heavier punching Gutierrez did just enough pecking and pawing from the outside with his jab to win the split decision officially and on my card 115-113.

Earlier in the afternoon from Eddie Hearn's palatial estate (as they used to say on Batman) in Brentwood England, undefeated light heavyweight Joshua Buatasi stopped a game Ricard Bolotniks in the eleventh round in the type of fight that every young contender needs before stepping to the championship level.

Buatasi dropped Bolotniks down in the sixth round and appeared to be poised to finish the veteran off for a spectacular win but Bolotniks survived the attack and even had a few moments of his own in the next few round before Buatasi concluded the fight in the eleventh with a right hand that sent Bolotniks sprawled along the ropes forcing the ending.

Buatasi lost a point for low blows in the eighth round but I still had him far ahead in the fight after ten rounds at 97-91.

That's exactly the type of middle-range fights that young fighters get experience from when a veteran just won't fall down the first time that they get cracked by a big puncher and I think it'll be the advantage of Buatasi for doing so.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each added three points from the DAZN cards and moved the total to 111-97.

I'll be back with the weekend from Top Rank on ESPN and the snoozer from PBC on Showtime.

Boxing Challenge: Garcia knocks out Campbell!

   The 2021 boxing challenge started earlier than normal with a critical lightweight eliminator that may have proven the worth of one of boxing's brightest prospects.

Ryan Garcia got up from the floor in the second round and then became the first fighter to stop Luke Campbell after cracking Campbell with a left hook to the liver that sent Campbell to the floor and took the ten count on the mat at American Airlines Arena in Dallas.

I had Garcia slightly ahead after six rounds at 57-56, but after Garcia hurt Campbell at the end of the fifth round, it was the younger fighter that was charging forward and was beginning to control the exchanges.

Ryan Garcia answered some questions but created others in the biggest win of his career.

Garcia proved that he can rebound from adversity and that his punching power is going to carry forward against top ten competition- if Garcia can land against you, he can take you out.

However, getting knocked down by Luke Campbell, who isn't known for his power, isn't a good sign for how Garcia will take the punches of heavier hitters such as Teofimo Lopez, Gervonta Davis, and even Devin Haney, and his defense will leave openings for him to get him more than he would wish.

All of the above-named fighters punch harder than Luke Campbell does and I do wonder how things will turn out when Garcia gets hit against those fighters and Garcia seemed to be a bit slow with his footwork and that could make him susceptible to quicker boxers.

There are still questions to be answered, but Ryan Garcia took his first step towards being a champion.

In the co-feature, Roger Gutierrez avenged a stoppage loss to Rene Alvarado with a unanimous decision victory for a minor title.

Alvarado stopped Gutierrez in the eighth round and won the majority of the rounds in their rematch, but Gutierrez knocked Alvarado down twice in the third round with Alvarado barely surviving.

Alvarado took back control and seemed to be on his way to victory, but in the final round Gutierrez scored another knockdown of Alvarado and that would make the difference on the scorecards as each judge gave Gutierrez a 113-112 decision. Without the knockdown, Alvarado would have salvaged a draw as each judge gave more rounds to Alvarado (7-5), but the final knockdown accounted for the point separating the two.

Even with the three knockdowns, I still had Alvarado winning 113-112 (8-4 in rounds, minus three points for the knockdowns). 

Considering the action in the fight and the close decision, I'd suspect a third fight between the pair is likely to happen in the future.

Rene's twin brother Felix retained his IBF junior flyweight championship with a tenth round knockout of former IBF minimumweight champion DeeJay Kriel in another entertaining fight.

Alvarado knocked down Kriel in the second and fourth rounds, but Kriel's heart won the night as he continued to fight through the harder punches of the bigger man and even won some rounds before the punishment finally wore down Kriel, leaving the referee little choice but to end the fight with a battered Kriel against the ropes and taking punishment.

In the newest boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored two points on the card.

Boxing Challenge: Wilder crunches Ortiz, Callum Smith creaks by Ryder

For almost seven complete rounds, Luis Ortiz was trying to complete his rematch with Deontay Wilder such as a jockey that is attempting to hold the lead at a very slow pace to lessen the chances of a stronger closer coming off the pace for a victory.

However, when you have the fastest gun in the game on your side it only takes one shot to end a fight.
And it only takes one mistake even as Ortiz was landing well be on his way to winning another round when Wilder fired one right hand.
That right hand landed flush and when the smoke cleared, it was only Wilder standing and keeping the WBC heavyweight title via seventh-round knockout in Las Vegas.
I had Ortiz ahead 59-55 after six rounds and would have likely given him the seventh, had the round ended.
The fight wasn't filled with activity and could have been called dull as both fighters respected the power of the other and rarely engaged.
I'm not really sure what this fight answered that we didn't already know- Deontay Wilder can erase a lot of effective boxing with one shot and Deontay Wilder can look pretty ordinary against good fighters while he waits for one shot.
Wilder moves onto the rematch with Tyson Fury in what appears to be February in another intriguing
fight.
Tyson Fury is the one fighter that took Wilder's best shot and got up, and Deontay Wilder is the one fighter that proved that he can hurt Tyson Fury when he lands, so the rematch is certainly very interesting.
Now, if we can just talk PBC and Top Rank into a cross-promotional fight or two on the undercard.

The undercard looked promising and then crumbled before the fight.
My favorite fight between two of the top five bantamweights in the world was canceled when Luis Nery missed weight by a pound and Emmanuel Rodriguez refused to accept compensation to fight an overweight Nery, so the fight was sadly canceled.
I think I'm with Rodriguez here.
Rodriguez is coming off his first career loss, is fighting a very talented former champion that has a PED history and has a history of missing weight.
When you consider all of those facts, should you risk another second loss against a fighter that is stronger for not hitting the weight mark for a couple thousand dollars?
I completely understand Rodriguez not proceeding and since this fight was a WBC title eliminator, the fair thing is to declare Rodriguez the top contender and refuse to rank Nery at 118 pounds.
Considering it's the WBC, the likely decision is likely to make this the fault of Rodriguez and give Nery the mandatory position.
Sarcasm mildly intended.

And if you thought Luis Nery was unprofessional, please allow me to introduce Julio Ceja!
Ceja, a former WBC junior featherweight champion, entered his fight with minor Titleist Brandon Figueroa after a terrific try against Guillermo Rigondeaux that saw him on the wrong side of an early stoppage while leading on the scorecards.
Ceja's effort against Rigondeaux was the best ever against the Cuban ( other than his ill-advised attempt against Vasyl Lomachenko), so Ceja had some goodwill in the bank that went awry when
Ceja missed weight by a stunning FOUR and a quarter pounds!
To put that in perspective, Ceja would have been overweight for a featherweight title fight and this was scheduled for the 122-pound junior featherweight division.
Figueroa decided to accept the fight when he was both compensated financially and assured by the sanctioning body that he would not lose his minor title, should he lose.
And here is why the argument made by Emmanuel Rodriguez for not accepting the extra money against an overweight opponent made sense because Figueroa's normally a very good puncher and he just couldn't hurt the larger Ceja in an excellent fight.
Figueroa-Ceja ended in a draw and it was fun to watch, but Ceja had such an artificial edge with the weight advantage that you wondered just how much that played into the fight.
Ceja has been knocked out three times in his career, yet Figueroa, a very good puncher, couldn't move him at all.
I scored Ceja a 115-113 winner in a fight that was very close and felt bad for Figueroa in the situation.

The co-feature was another gift for Leo Santa Cruz, who seems to thrive on winning vacant titles against questionable competition and then sitting on them until he rises in weight.
Santa Cruz won his fourth world title (from three different organizations.) with a unanimous decision over Miguel Flores to add the WBA junior lightweight title to his trophy case and won few fans in doing so.
Santa Cruz fights usually follow the same pattern, landing lots of punches, with not a lot of power, and his overmatched opponents are defeated on the scorecards, but generally unhurt.
This fight followed that template as I gave Flores the first round and no others, so the scorecard isn't the issue for me.
My issue with Santa Cruz is this- he's talented and has won four "titles". but is only 1-1 against top-notch fighters, splitting a series with Carl Frampton and his two wins over Abner Mares after Mares had slipped past his best are his only other notable wins.
I'm not sure what the issues are with Santa Cruz, is it that he doesn't want to fight top opponents and is satisfied with belts and money?
Or is it that his promoters choose not to roll the dice and gamble Santa Cruz against someone that could beat him?
I wonder about the PBC sometimes in these situations with fighters that haven't fought good competition and how it happens with examples such as Santa Cruz, Gary Russell, and Gervonta Davis.
My guesses are as follows:
Gervonta Davis is a fighter that is "on the wrong side of the street" (I'm really beginning to hate that phrase) promotionally in his division and has a chance to win against the best in the game.
Davis has that kind of ability but needs a breakout win that PBC seems unwilling or unable to provide.
Russell has tons of talent but seems content to fight once a year, keep a title, cash a nice check, and not challenge himself.
Santa Cruz isn't as talented as the above two and has been protected from fighters such as Russell (both are featherweight champions with PBC and could easily fight) and either his management or promotion realizes this and is protecting him for as long as possible.

We move to DAZN with cards from Matchroom and Golden Boy and a very interesting result that has been overshadowed by the Wilder-Ortiz fight.

Matchroom's main event from Liverpool, England looked to be a stay busy fight as Callum Smith, who is looked at by most as the top super middleweight in the world, defended his WBA title against countryman John Ryder, who entered the fight on a four-fight upset streak with all four wins over undefeated or one-loss fighters.
However, the biggest name on Ryder's record was Rocky Fielding in a loss, so Smith was a prohibitive favorite to defend his title.
Watching the clips of the weigh-in, Smith looked to be a full division larger than Ryder, and with six inches in height and reach over Ryder, this seemed to be a mismatch.
AND that's why we fight the fights and why everyone makes mistakes.

In honesty, I watched this fight twice.
The first time that I watched it, I scored it 115-113 for Callum Smith with Smith holding off the late charge of Ryder, who won the final three rounds on my card.
After that, I went to bed having stayed up to watch Ohio State-Penn State, then Smith-Ryder and needing sleep before work.
When I got up, something was nagging at me about it, but I had to watch the other DAZN card, Wilder-Ortiz, etc and I put it aside.
Still, I talked to Fred Landucci and he asked me about my thoughts which made my earlier questions return.
In short, I rewatched it and my score changed to 115-113 for Ryder, who attacked throughout, took advantage of a seemingly overconfident and underprepared Smith and my rewatched card could be slightly kind to Smith.
Ryder was the stronger fighter, worked Smith over to the ropes and ripped away on the inside to the body of the bigger man.
I also thought that Ryder did much better than expected in the center of the ring where you would think Smith would not only want to be but where he would control the action.

I had the edge of rewatching to get things right which judges in live-action do not, but what seems to happen in fights where the huge favorite wins an unpopular decision is this- In those early rounds when fights are just starting to settle in, judges fall into a trap and score those early rounds for the fighter that's expected to win- because they think that's what should be happening rather than what is.
By the time that you realize that the fight isn't happening the way it "should", it's too late and there is how you get a bad call.
I would imagine a rematch is in order, but I have a feeling that John Ryder may have already fought the fight of his life once, and should a rematch be forced, Callum Smith is going to be ready.
Callum Smith is the better fighter, but John Ryder deserved the duke on this night.
A belated Hamburglar for this one.

The evening card for DAZN was a Golden Boy card with two of those wonderful minor belts from the WBA and saw an upset in the main event as Rene Alvarado tore apart Andrew Cancio like Gale Sayers through an overmatched defense.
Cancio had knocked out Alvarado in their first fight in 2015 and after two wins over highly regarded Alberto Machado, was thought to be a rising fighter with a great story.
Alvarado used his longer reach and surprising aggressiveness from the start to cur Cancio around both eyes and bloodied his nose to the point of Alvarado's white trunks appearing to be a light pink from Cancio's blood.
Cancio fought as bravely as he could, but he couldn't figure out how to avoid Alvarado's incessant offense in order to get inside to do his best work.
I had Alvarado ahead 69-64 (6-1) when the fight was mercifully ended in Cancio's corner at the end of the seventh round.
Cancio was becoming quite a story, but it is very possible that Cancio is a solid fighter that simply had the number of Alberto Machado.
We'll see if Rene Alvarado, also a solid fighter, can perform well against fighters other than Andrew Cancio.

In the other fight, China's Xu Can continues to impress in his move up the featherweight ladder with his unanimous decision win over Manny Robles.
Can reminds me a bit of Josh Warrington in that he throws a lot of punches and attempts to overwhelm his opponents with volume.
Funny that I should mention Warrington, who was the champion called out in the post-fight interview by Can and that would be a very exciting fight to see.
Neither fighter has world-class sting on their punches but in a fight between those two the ringside people counting the punches had better be ready to work overtime!
I scored Can the winner 118-110 over Robles, who took his first loss but had won his previous two fights by close split decisions and the bloom seems to be fading off a once-promising prospect.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica seven to five (the Wilder KO making the difference) to move my overall lead to 278-246.

I'm going to try to be back later with the Browns romp over Miami and looking forward to a rematch in Pittsburgh.