Boxing Challenge: Hamburglar Alert in Warren

 The boxing challenge starts in Warren, Ohio as what I thought was a bad decision didn't only decide a world championship it could have been a multi-million dollar bad call.

WBC cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu was very fortunate to escape mandatory challenger Thabiso Mchunu by a split decision to retain his championship.

Mchunu was the more active fighter and I thought he was the more aggressive one but Makabu retained his title with scores of 116-112 and 115-113 overruling a 115-113 call for the challenger.

The decision not only retained the title for Makabu, but it also kept alive the chances of a multi-million dollar paycheck against Canelo Alvarez as Alvarez attempts to add another belt to his trophy case.WBC cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu was very fortunate to escape mandatory challenger
Thabiso Mchunu by a split decision to retain his championship.

Mchunu was the more active fighter and I thought he was the more aggressive one but Makabu retained his title with scores of 116-112 and 115-113 overruling a 115-113 call for the challenger.

I scored the fight for the challenger 116-112.

The decision not only retained the title for Makabu, but it also kept alive the chances of a multi-million dollar paycheck against Canelo Alvarez as Alvarez attempts to add another belt to his trophy case.

The Don King promoted was even worse with another WBA minor title "defense" as Trevor Bryan won a split decision over Louisiana clubfighter Jonathan Guidry.

Bryan generally controlled the dull fight over the overmatched but gutsy Guidry and scored the only knockdown with seconds remaining with the bell ringing after a weary Guidry barely made it to his feet.

Bryan won on scores of 118-109 and 116-111 with the usually dependable Steve Weisfeld offering an inexplicable 115-112 for Guidry.

I saw it for Bryan at 118-109 but the win was far from impressive considering the competition and Bryan will have to be far better in his next fight against the WBA mandated Daniel DuBois.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Robson Conceicao rebounded from his close defeat to Oscar Valdez with an easy unanimous decision over Xavier Martinez in a WBC junior lightweight eliminator on ESPN.

Martinez stunned Conceicao at the end of the third round but that was the only round that he won on my card in a 99-91 defeat.

Conceicao likely will be in a position to either challenge the Oscar Valdez-Shakur Stevenson unification winner or fight for a vacant title should the winner decide to vacate their championships.

Last-minute replacement Giovanni Cabrera shocked heavy favorite Rene Tellez Giron by outboxing Giron over eight rounds in winning an upset unanimous decision.

Cabrera took the fight when Luis Melendez missed weight and hadn't fought since 2019 but his awkward style puzzled Giron from the start and his four-inch height advantage kept Giron from doing any work on the inside.

In the boxing challenge

Vince Samano 12 Pts (4)

Ramon Malpica 11 Pts (2)
TRS 10 Pts (4)

Boxing Challenge: Figueroa Nails Nery

   

Luis Nery and Brandon Figueroa exchanged both hits and misses in an exciting fight that seemed to be headed towards an exciting conclusion for six exciting rounds.

In the seventh, the action ended quickly and conclusively as one left hook to the ribcage saw Nery wince in pain and fall to the floor where he was counted out, giving Figueroa a mild upset and Nery's WBC junior featherweight championship.

I had Nery slightly ahead after six rounds (58-56), but it did seem like the pace was affecting Nery more than Figueroa as his body language gave away his weariness at the end of round six.

Both fighters landed their share of punches (Nery 34% and Figueroa 27%), but there many awkward swings in the air throughout and it isn't because either fighter reminds anyone of Salvador Sanchez defensively.

Figueroa retained his minor WBA title, which confused viewers throughout as if you didn't know any better you would believe that Figueroa had unified two titles, but he had not as the true WBA titleholder is M.J. Akhmadaliev.

Still, Figueroa now holds a true world title and will actually unify with WBO champion Stephen Fulton in a scheduled September fight.

I'm glad that we are getting Figueroa-Fulton rather than Nery-Fulton not for any personal reason, but as I was watching the fight, I thought that a Nery-Fulton fight might be awkward pairing due to styles, but that Fulton-Figueroa looked like a very good meshing of styles.

Big win for Brandon Figueroa and he'll need to step his game up even further against the smooth boxing Fulton.

The co-feature was another entertaining affair as former WBA and IBF junior featherweight champion Daniel Roman took a few rounds to figure out aggressive Ricardo Espinoza but won the final six rounds on my scorecard to win a unanimous decision.

Roman busted Figueroa's face up badly with swelling and Figueroa might not have been able to make it through two more rounds had the fight been scheduled for twelve rounds rather than ten.

I had Roman a 98-92 victor.

Considering Roman's status as a former two-organization champion and the closeness of his loss to M.J. Akhmadaliev, shouldn't he be a mandatory challenger in one of the organizations?

In the opener, Money Team member Xavier Martinez won a clear but not easy unanimous decision over veteran Juan Carlos Burgos in a junior lightweight ten rounder.

There were no knockdowns in the fight, but plenty of punches pitched, and Burgos fought well, but was not able to keep pace with the younger Martinez.

I scored Martinez a 98-92 winner.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored four points on the weekend to move the totals to 66-64.

Boxing Challenge: Lipinets, Clayton battle to Majority Draw

   Saturday night's PBC card from Showtime didn't appear to be one of their more glamorous offerings from the premium cable network and while it lacked huge names and anything resembling what DAZN televised on Friday night, they still delivered a decent night from their Covid-19 home of Uncasville, Connecticut.

In the main event, welterweights Sergey Lipinets and late replacement Custio Clayton battled to a majority decision draw for an interim IBF belt that was planned so long ago that at that time, the organization didn't know the status of their champion Errol Spence and Spence will fight in early December against Danny Garcia.

Hopefully, the majority draw and Spence's return will take this belt out of play because one of the few things that the IBF ( and the WBO for the most part) does well is that they usually stay out of the multiple titles in the same division garbage that the WBA and WBC do so often with their "titles".

This one wasn't filled with action, but there was enough to follow that it wasn't a boring fight either and Clayton credit as he stepped up well as a late replacement and in his first test after an amateur career that saw him fight at the Olympic level.

I had Clayton a 115-113 winner as did one of the judges, but have no problems with the majority draw in such a close fight.

The two undercard bouts featured prospects from the Floyd Mayweather camp with the evening ending in a mixed bag for the Money Team.

Junior lightweight Xavier Martinez survived an eighth round that saw veteran Claudio Marrero knock him down twice to win a unanimous decision.

I haven't watched this fight yet in its entirety (was on the way to the road office), but reading the reports of others Martinez deserved the close nod despite the knockdowns from Marrero, who continues to be a stern test as a crossroads fighters in the 126 and now 130 pound divisions.

I did see the first fight with junior welterweight Subriel Matias rebounding from his first pro loss with a stoppage of a surprisingly meek Malik Hawkins when the doctor ended the fight one second into the seventh round.

Matias is the young bomber that knocked out Maxim Dadashev and Dadashev passed away from his injuries shortly after the fight.

Matias lost his next fight after that and I wondered if Matias may have been scarred by the tragedy entering this match with Hawkins, but Matias walked through Hawkins' punches, ignored his jab and broke Hawkins down with a stoppage seeming to be inevitable.

For Matias, the win returns him to fighter to watch status and for Hawkins, this uncompetitive loss combined with his last fight with Darwin Price, where he was on his way to a loss before a knee injury to Price gave Hawkins the duke, marks him as more suspect than prospect. 

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica scored three points to my two to cut my lead further at 137-129.