Boxing Challenge: Ramirez beats Barthelemy, Ortiz needs just one

     Golden Boy Promotion's card Saturday night card from Fresno California may not have delivered many surprises but did offer some good action and may have made some 140-pound contenders look closely at a chance to face a former champion who could be ripe for the picking.

In the main event, former WBC and WBO junior welterweight champion Jose Ramirez was successful in his first fight under the GBP banner in winning a unanimous decision over former IBF junior lightweight and lightweight Rances Barthelemy.

The road wasn't all smooth for Ramirez, who appeared to be knocked down in the third round but referee Jack Reiss called it a shove (it looked like a knockdown to me) and after hitting the floor, Barthelemy landed several punches to the downed Ramirez.

In fairness, it should have been called a knockdown and then deducted a point from Barthelemy for hitting Ramirez while down but if neither were called, I'm okay with the round as a one-point round.

Barthelemy hurt Ramirez again late in the fourth round but was unable to follow up

 Ramirez would take command and he would slow down Barthelemy down severely over the second half of the fight.

The judges gave Ramirez the edge on the scorecards with scores of 119-109 twice and 118-110.

I had Ramirez as the winner 117-111 however Ramirez may have lost a step and while I would still think he's of world title contention status, I think he may have become a cut below the level of the division champions, Teofmo Lopez, Devin Haney, Isaac Cruz, and Subriel Matias.

The co-feature looked like a mismatch entering the fight and Vergil Ortiz ended it quickly as Ortiz ripped one body shot that downed Thomas Dulorme for the count in the first round in their junior middleweight ten-rounder.

The best thing to say about this one is that Ortiz sustained no damage that might delay his anticipated fight with Tim Tsyzu in August.

Dulorme, a one-time world title challenger, lost his fifth in his last seven outings and might be suited to think about ending his ring career.

The first fight saw Oscar Duarte rebound from his loss to Ryan Garcia to stop former junior lightweight champion Joseph Diaz in the ninth round.

Diaz landed his share of punches in the first few rounds but the stronger Duarte pounded Diaz from the fifth round forward and the referee made the right decision in stopping the fight with Diaz taking blows along the ropes.

I had Duarte slightly ahead after eight rounds at 78-76 but Diaz hadn't won a round since the fourth and it made little sense to continue the fight.

For Duarte, it's a feather in his cap as he was the first man to stop Diaz and it should help him receive more fights while for Diaz, who tried his best, it's time for him, like Thomas Dulorme, to consider ending a solid career.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica: 56 Pts (5)

TRS: 55 Pts (5)

Vince Samano: 28 Pts  (5) 

Boxing Challenge: Ennis, Zepeda score First Round KO's

 The boxing weekend saw one mild surprise and two top contenders score impressive first-round knockout wins against good opposition.

The most meaningful fight ended with an upset as Radzhab Butaev surprised Jamal James with a ninth-round knockout to take the minor welterweight title held by James and earn a mandatory chance at WBA champion Yordenis Ugas.

Butaev pressured the 6'2 James throughout the fight and held a slight lead on my scorecard (77-75) entering the ninth round before beginning to hurt James and with James against the ropes, referee Celestino Ruiz stopped the fight.

It was a little premature in my opinion as James was stung a bit but not badly dazed.

Butaev will get a title shot against Ugas or Eimanis Stanionis for the full WBA title.

The WBA has ordered Ugas-Stanionis with the winner to face Butaev but Ugas has asked for an exception to face WBC and IBF champion, Errol Spence.

Should the extension be granted, Stanionis and Butaev could fight each other for the mandatory fight for a Ugas-Spence winner but if it is not granted Ugas has threatened to vacate the WBA belt to fight Spence anyway, which would result in Stanionis-Butaev for the vacant title. 

The co-feature saw the most feared welterweight in the sports as Jaron "Boots" Ennis blew Thomas Dulorme out in one round.

Ennis knocked Dulorme down with a left hook followed by a right hand and Dulorme rose and tried to fight off Ennis but seconds later would be felled by a combination that he couldn't rise from and was counted out.

For Ennis, it was another impressive performance that will make few interested in fighting him, even champions such as Errol Spence and Terence Crawford.

Ennis is rated in the top six by all four organizations but not higher than third by the IBF and its very possible that Ennis may have to wait until 2023 and be a mandatory challenger to get a title shot, which is too bad because other than answering chin questions, which haven't been an issue thus far, Ennis looks to be as strong of a young contender as I've seen in quite a while.

In New York City, junior welterweight contender Jose Zepeda crushed Josue Vargas in one round of a grudge match after a pre-fight buildup that saw punches and kicks exchange from both men and their camps.

Zepeda dropped Vargas in the first round with a left and with Vargas badly hurt, Zepeda battered Vargas into a corner and fired away relentlessly before the referee ended the fight.

Zepeda is ranked second by the WBC and might be placed in fights like these for a while as he waits for  Josh Taylor to vacate his four titles.

No boxing challenge as we didn't get choices, due to a miscommunication. 

Boxing Challenge: Ennis erases Lipinets, Smith shades Vlasov

 The Saturday boxing evening shifted to ESPN and Showtime and while the results ended in wins for the expected "Chalk", but in only one case did the winner walk out of the ring with the kudos that were expected as well.

Let's start with the three-fight Showtime card from Uncasville, Connecticut, and their main event with the highly touted Jaron "Boots" Ennis taking his next step forward against former IBF junior welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets.

Much as in last week's fight between Jamel Herring and Carl Frampton, the size difference between these two was glaring and Ennis dominated the once-beaten Lipinets in every round, including a 10-8 round after a fourth-round knockdown.

With Ennis leading 50-44 going to the sixth, there wouldn't be a seventh as Ennis finished with a right hook followed by a left hand to send Lipinets crashing to the floor with the fight ended without a count.

Al Bernstein made a great point on the telecast when he stated that Ennis is unusual for a fighter that can switch easily from lefty to righthander in that he can do so without losing power in either hand.

Ennis is bad news already for anyone in the division, not named Spence or Crawford, and his talents might be just as even against them although he could need a little seasoning against a fighter better than Lipinets against a Shawn Porter or Keith Thurman before a fight with the champions.

Ennis may not receive that title shot for a while as he is the definition of high risk-low reward for Spence, Crawford, or newly crowned WBA champion Yordenis Ugas and may have to be the mandatory challenger, but unless one of the inept "Four Donkeys" of boxing decides to radically elevate Ennis after his win over Lipinets, Ennis may have to fight an eliminator or not.

Ennis is currently ranked 7th by the WBO, 9th in the IBF (although this could be his biggest leap as Lipinets was rated 3rd there), 12th by the WBC, and unranked by the putrid WBA, who finds a way to rate fighters such as Gabriel Maestre, Alberto Palmetta, Abel Ramos, Cody Crowley, and Conor Benn without Ennis.

Truly awful...

The undercard pitting two of those WBA welterweights rated ahead of Ennis in an eliminator between Eimantas Stanionis and Thomas Dulorme.

Dulorme is a solid, but not quite top ten 147 pounder and he was thought to give the undefeated Stanionis his toughest fight as a pro and he did so in a close unanimous decision victory,

Stanionis won the final four rounds on my card to win 115-113 over Dulorme, who likely earned himself another paycheck against an undefeated prospect/contender with a strong effort.

I don't think Stanionis has a prayer against Jaron Ennis, but he looks like an eventual top ten welterweight.

The opener was expected to be a dull battle and instead was a terrific fight as Jerwin Ancajas retained his IBF junior bantamweight championship with a unanimous decision over Jonathan Rodriguez.

Lots of action in this one and Ancajas scoring an eighth-round knockdown that won him the fight on my card 114-113, although it seemed that many were unhappy with the official scores that saw Ancajas win by wider margins of three, five, and seven points.

If you really stretch things, you may see Ancajas by three points but the five and seven are ridiculous cards.

Ancajas kept his title for the ninth time and I'd like to see him in a unification fight against WBO champion Kazuto Ioka, which would create a natural opponent for the survivor of the triangle between Juan Francisco Estrada, Roman Gonzalez, and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, and a great attempt for the unknown Rodriguez, who I would like to see again in a big fight.

Over on ESPN, heavily favored Joe Smith rallied to win the final two rounds and slide by Maxim Vlasov by a majority decision in Tulsa Oklahoma to grab the vacant WBO light heavyweight title.

The scorecards were even at 114-114 and the two cards for Smith were 115-113 and 115-112.

The latter score didn't cost Vlasov the fight, but Smith hit Vlasov in the back of the head in the eleventh round and the fight was shortly delayed so Vlasov could recover, but the 115-112 judge still scored the round 10-8 stating that he thought it was a knockdown.

That's great and all, but your ruling isn't suppose to overrule the referee's decision- Be grateful that point didn't cost Vlasov all that much.

Vlasov used an awkward volume punching style that puzzled Smith for most of the fight and I thought Vlasov did enough to pull the upset 115-113 on my scorecard.

But per usual, the underdog on the road rarely gets the close call and Vlasov certainly didn't help his cause by giving Smith the final two rounds which were enough to give Smith the win.

Smith will likely unify his newly won title with those of WBC and IBF champion Artur Beterbiev in what should be a great fight between two straight ahead bombers with the best punching power in the division.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica seven-five on the weekend (including the previously written Conor Benn win) with the win by Jerwin Ancajas allowing for the two-point difference.

I lead the boxing challenge 45-41.

Boxing Challenge: James, Morrell win minor titles

The Saturday night card on Fox that returned PBC to the boxing game,post-pandemic, was disappointing on a few levels.
I'll write about the most disappointing detail from outside the ring later, but inside the ring, the action was acceptable, if not awesome.

In the main event, Welterweight Jamal James earned a unanimous decision over Thomas Dulorme for one of the seemingly endless WBA minor belts in Los Angeles.
Dulorme was his typical attacking self, but the 6'2 James managed to take control midway through the bout to pull away to the deserved decision by outboxing Dulorme from the outside.
James managed to be more effective with the change in tactics, but it did make the bout less exciting with fewer exchanges.
I scored James the winner 116-112.
The victory was the biggest of his career for James and did give him a minor belt, which is worthless other than to give him a certain status in the WBA and might (emphasis on might) give him an eventual chance at a bigger fight in the organization.
James is a solid fighter and is a lower end of the top ten that would be acceptable for a title shot when a champion needs a good opponent, but not a great one.
Still, something about James makes me that this is his ceiling and he won't be able to take the next step from top ten/twelve level to championship timber.
As for Dulorme, he will always be able to land these types of fights because he is an excellent gatekeeper in the division, and he'll always give his best effort, but he is a step below the contenders in the division.

David Morrell won another WBA minor belt with a unanimous decision win over Lennox Allen in the co-main event.
The win for Morrell was his third in as many pro bouts as the Cuban handled the twelve round distance well and showed different dimensions as a boxer that has some power as well.
I'm not sure why Morrell, who is far younger than most Cuban defectors at 22, is being pushed so quickly unless the aim is to develop someone to feed to the David Benavidez-Caleb Plant winner that PBC is apparently building towards.
Morrell's plenty talented and being a southpaw could be a fighter that few will want to take a risk against for a low reward.
As with Jamal James, Morrell adds another one of those WBA worthless belts to defend against soft opposition for the time being.

In the boxing challenge, I scored four points (2 for each win above) to Ramon Malpica's two (from David Morrell) to extend my lead to ten points at 81-71.

PBC announced their upcoming cards on Fox during the card and being kind, they look very weak in their main events.

Two title eliminators at welterweight on different shows look less than strong but could have ended with an anticipated match.
Former WBC and IBF champion Shawn Porter will face undefeated and thoroughly untested Sebastian Formella on August 22nd on one show while Yordenis Ugas battles Abel Ramos for another of the 12 WBA belts in September,
Porter defended his title in 2019 via a split decision over Ugas that many scored for Ugas (I scored it even at 114) and a rematch would be a fight that I could get behind.
Instead, we get Porter against Formella, who has fought no one that anyone could remotely call a contender) and Ugas against Abel Ramos, who is 0-2-1 against the best fighters he has fought in Maurice Hooker, Jamal James, and Ivan Baranchyk.
Ramos-Formella would be fine as a co-main event or an eliminator main event on FS1, but neither of the fights scheduled is appetizing.
Some of the blame for this goes to the sanctioning bodies involved, but don't tell me if PBC wanted to make Porter-Ugas instead that the alphabet boys involved wouldn't have re-evaluated.

However, neither of those two main events is as awful as the other card with Erislandy Lara defending one of the 12 WBA titles at junior middleweight Greg Vendetti.
Lara, who has become more fan-friendly as an action fighter as he ages, is saddled with Vendetti, a Massachusetts clubfighter that has two names that stick out on his record- a unanimous decision over Yoshihiro "Mr.Action" Kamegai that saw Kamegai retire after the loss and being blown out in two rounds by fringe contender Michel Soro.
This looks like a colossal mismatch and isn't worthy of the main event on national television.
PBC needs to do better.

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