Boxing Challenge: Roach wins while drawing vs Davis

  This will be a hybrid of the usual reports as I am still recovering (more on that in future posts) and still have plenty of other items to catch up with.

The biggest fight of the weekend saw the biggest story of the weekend as the top American star in the game, WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis, was taken to the brink against WBA junior lightweight titleholder Lamont Roach, and held to a majority decision draw that bluntly should have given Davis his first career defeat.

Roach was robbed of a massive victory and a paycheck for a rematch that would be far larger with a win than a majority draw that he was given.

I scored the fight 114-114, as did two judges with the dissenter tabbing Davis the winner 115-113. so the scorecards were all reasonable but the travesty occurred in round nine when Roach landed a short right hand that was followed by a soft jab that then saw Davis voluntarily take a knee, which he claimed was needed when "grease from his hair had gotten into his eye".

That may have been the case but no matter the reason, if a fighter takes a knee it should be scored a knockdown.

Referee Steve Wilks started a count and then stopped it allowing Davis to save the point- a point that would save his title.

If the proper call had been made, Roach would have won round 10-8 and flipped all three cards in his favor for a unanimous decision stunner.

While I'm sure a rematch will be signed and Roach will be paid handsomely, he should have the title entering a second fight which would have been worth even more money.

As for Gervonta Davis, this could have been an off night or overconfidence against a former amateur rival moving up in weight and isn't known for his power in the smaller division.

While Davis didn't fight poorly, he didn't look sharp either.

Despite his tremendous one-shot power, Davis isn't a physically large lightweight, so perhaps there are some reasons that Davis is consistently matched against smaller lightweights (Frank Martin, Isaac Cruz) and junior lightweights moving up in weight (Roach, Hector Luis Garcia.

Davis is among the best bangers in the sport and his skills are excellent but in a division with excellent fights to be made, Davis appears content to defend against second-tier fighters for large paychecks.

While I completely understand the goal of making as much money as possible, Davis is beginning to feel the backlash of being a fighter who is dodging the elite challenges that are available.

The problem with that gameplan is that when you eventually lose, it will be to an opponent that will be considered inferior, and the defeat usually hurts your "legacy".

It's not too late for Gervonta Davis but Davis needs a convincing win over Lamont Roach in a rematch and then set sail to finally make those matches to see just how he will be remembered.

In other bouts-

Gary Antuanne Russell dominated Jose Valenzuela to win the WBA junior welterweight title, winning by scores of 120-108 (same as mine) and 119-109 times two.

Russell, like his older brother and former WBC featherweight champion Gary, has excessive talent but falls into long periods of inactivity.

Hopefully, that will not happen this time as PBC would like to see Russell unify with WBC champion Alberto Puello, who kept his title via a split decision over Sandor Martin.

Puello won 116-112 and 115-113 to overrule the 115-113 card for Martin.

I scored it 115-113 for Martin.

Puello handed Gary Antuanne Russell his only career loss, so a rematch does have some intrigue.

Cuban junior middleweight Yoenis Tellez battered former WBA and IBF champion Julian Williams in winning a unanimous decision by scores of 119-109, 118-110 (my score) and 117-111.

Former IBF junior welterweight champion Subriel Matias won a title eliminator with an eighth-round knockout of Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela in Puerto Rico.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 25 Pts(6)

Ramon Malpica: 23 Pts(5)

Vince Samano: 15 Pts(0)

John Herndon: 5 Pts (5)

Boxing Challenge: Crawford KO's Avanesyan, Lopez survives Martin

     Terence Crawford showed that thirteen months away from the ring didn't slow his speed or drain his power as he landed a left uppercut and a booming right hand to knock out David Avanesyan in the sixth round to retain his WBO welterweight title in Omaha, Nebraska.

Avanesyan won the first two rounds on my scorecard and like Egid Kavaliauskas a few years ago against Crawford, had some success with backing Crawford up and making him give ground.

However, the class and skills of the champion began to show as the fight moved forward.

Avanesyan had occasional bursts of offense, it was clear that Crawford was setting the challenger up for the finish, and in the sixth round, the trap snapped shut.

While Avanesyan isn't an elite welterweight, he is a solid back end of the top ten contender and it was impressive to see Crawford finish him so quickly and smoothly.

Now as usual the talk returns of Crawford against Errol Spence as it always does after either unbeaten champion dispatches their latest challenger and the only fight that really matters in the welterweight division ( although I'd be okay with Jaron Ennis against either!) continues in boxing limbo.

Supposedly, both parties are optimistic but both were this year and it didn't happen, so with Errol Spence now scheduled to face Keith "One Time Every Three Years" Thurman, it could be summer at the earliest for the superfight to happen.

Oh, Boxing...

ESPN and Top Rank pushed another Heisman evening appearance from New York for former lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez, who had been spectacular in his previous Heisman night fights on the network, including his second-round KO of Richard Commey to win his first world title.

Lopez doesn't resemble that punishing fighter anymore let alone the one that stunned the world with his upset of Vasyl Lomachenko and he looked very average against Sandor Martin, who took the fight on three weeks' notice to replace Jose Pedraza and on my scorecard did enough to upset Lopez as he did Mikey Garcia last year.

However, despite Martin knocking Lopez down in the second round ( and scoring another knockdown later that was scored a slip), Lopez managed to win a controversial split decision victory that boxing observers are wondering if Lopez's best was left in the ring against Vasyl Lomachenko.

The fight was close (I had Martin ahead 95-94) and I could see Lopez as a winner by the same score but the judges saw Lopez as the winner by tallies of 96-93 and an incredibly terrible 97-92 to override the 95-94 card for Martin.

As in his loss to George Kambosos, who also dropped Lopez, Lopez wades in recklessly against fighters that he expects to overwhelm and gets knocked down by counter right hands that don't hurt him but knock him off-balance and to the floor.

Lopez has been mentioned as a possible opponent for WBO champion Josh Taylor, should he win his rematch with Jack Catterall, or WBC king Regis Prograis but from what I saw against Sandor Martin, I think he would be a deserved underdog against either champion.

As for Martin, this is the second big performance from the Spaniard against a big-name opponent that was expected to overwhelm him, and perhaps it's time to give Martin some credit as a solid contender.

One fighter that did his job to impress was undefeated heavyweight prospect Jared Anderson, who in his first ten-round fight, took out the usually durable Jerry Forrest in only two rounds. 

Forrest did land some counter right hands in the first round but the veteran barely survived the round and Anderson finished him quickly in the second.

A very impressive win for Anderson to stop Forrest, who had finished the distance in recent years against contenders Kubrat Pulev, Michael Hunter, Zhilei Zhang, and Jermaine Franklin, and Anderson is certainly the most promising American heavyweight to come along in years.

I'll be back later with the two fights from Europe in another post.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 205 Pts (5)

Ramon Malpica:175 Pts (5)

Vince Samano: 162 Pts (4)

Boxing Challenge: Upset of the Millenium?

  Larry Merchant used to call boxing "The Theatre of the Absurd" when crazy things would happen on HBO's broadcasts and what he meant was anything can happen in our nutty sport.

Saturday night in Fresno, California, some may have recalled Merchant's phrase and yet others may have preferred the phrase from childhood "Whatever comes around goes around" when you saw someone get their comeuppance.

By all accounts, Mikey Garcia had a great career in winning titles in three divisions but he often was his own worst enemy outside the ring in refusing to budge in order to make career-defining fights, several long layoffs between fights, promotional disputes, and a refusal to see that one doesn't become an A-side until you compromise a little to defeat an A-side fighter or two.

Add to that what seemed to be an almost disdain for the sport and one could easily see Mikey Garcia being upset by a lesser fighter sooner or later.

What no one saw as Spaniard Sandor Martin, who had lost to the only name fighter on his record in former title challenger Anthony Yigit, and was a more than prohibitive underdog to be overwhelmed by Garcia in yet another Garcia "need to get the rust off" after a self-enforced inactive period, take advantage of an unprepared and unmotivated Garcia to win a shocking majority decision in arguably the biggest upset in years.

The fight was slow and lacked a lot of action, so Martin did the one thing that he could do to win, even against a dull Garcia- stick, move, and pray for help on the scorecards.

Martin controlled through his boxing from outside with Garcia throwing just one punch at a time and the big question was this- Would the unknown fighter get the close decision that he deserved against the hometown big name?

To my surprise, he did with two scores of 96-94 (same as mine) and a third of a 98-92 for a majority decision that was as big of a surprise as any fight in recent years.

Matchroom CEO Eddie Hearn stated that there was not a rematch clause for the two but really a rematch will be the largest financial option for Martin and for Garcia, he almost will have to defeat Martin in order to return to contender status.

Mikey Garcia always talked about how much he never liked boxing and with his behavior towards the business of boxing Garcia showed that out.

However, it is not unfair to consider that Mikey Garcia may have already given boxing the best that the sport will see and what boxing historians and fans could eventually decide about Mikey Garcia for all of his accomplishments that boxing never saw the best that he could have offered.

In the co-feature, mandatory challenger Jonathan Gonzalez spoiled the plans for a light flyweight unification fight as Gonzalez won the WBO title via split decision over Elwin Soto.

In many ways, Gonzalez's win was very much like the victory that would follow later in the evening by Sandor Martin- Gonzalez used the stick and move method and held off the weak aggression of Soto that probably deserved a unanimous decision rather than a split nod.

Gonzalez winning two cards (and mine) at 116-112 with a pretty bad 116-112 card for Soto in opposition was the fair result and ruined a unification fight with Soto and WBA champion Hiroto Kyoguchi that was planned for next year.

The best fighter of the weekend won his showcase bout in his home country as Mairis Bredis kept his IBF cruiserweight belt with a third-round knockout of Germany's Artur Mann in Riga, Latvia.

Breidis knocked Mann down in the second round before adding two more in the third to finish the outmatched Mann.

Breidis did announce his intention to face the second-best fighter in the division, England's Lawrence Okolie, and unify the IBF and WBO titles before both fighters would move to the heavyweight division.

It's the best fight that can be made with the cruiserweight and hopefully can be signed for the first half of 2021.

In Newcastle, England, Hughie Fury defeated Christian Hammer vis TKO when Hammer was unable to continue after the fifth round.

I thought Fury won all five rounds but the fifth round did see several exchanges between the two and the injury to Hammer's bicep that forced the ending in the corner was ill-timed as it occurred just as the fight was starting to open up.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored three points to move the total to 140-120.