Boxing Challenge: New champ, two squashes, and an undercard war!

The back nine of the boxing challenge wasn't filled with the most entertaining bouts, but the chalk held strong and in a non-challenge fight saw more than enough leather landed to make it worth your while.

First, we go back to Friday and to the Republic of Congo, which isn't exactly where you see championships decided every day for the filling of the WBC cruiserweight title, which had been vacant for over a year since Oleksandr Usyk gave up all four of his titles in the division to move to the heavyweight division.
The Congo was the choice in this once for home county favorite Ilunga Makabu and Makabu brought the championship with him as Makabu won a unanimous decision over Michal Cieslak.
Makabu knocked Cieslak down in the fourth but was knocked off balance from a Cieslak right hand in the fifth and saw his glove touch the canvas for a knockdown.
I scored Makabu a 115-111 winner (I watched a very weak video via YouTube) and Makabu will be a player in a very weak cruiserweight division currently that will have the winner of the finals of the WBSS between IBF champion Yunier Dorticos and Mairis Bredis in March.

PBC had the stage to themselves Saturday after the postponement of the Jose Ramirez-Viktor Postol card from China due to the CoronaVirus, but the card looked uninspired and delivered with two fights that were less than competitive from Shreveport, Louisiana.
In the main event, welterweight contender Yordenis Ugas won every round over Mike Dallas and forced the Dallas corner to stop the fight at the end of the seventh round.
This fight looked like a squash match when it was signed as Ugas is a solid top ten welterweight and his split decision loss to WBC champion Shawn Porter could have been decided in his favor, while Dallas hadn't fought in nearly three years and his last world-class opponent was Lucas Matthysse, who took Dallas out in one round in 2013!
It was as uncompetitive as I thought it would be and the only thing missing was a knockdown.
Hopefully, Ugas will fight someone better in his next outing.

The co-feature was a little better as lightweight prospect Michel Rivera stopped veteran Fidel Maldonado in the tenth and final round.
Rivera controlled the fight against the shorter and smaller Maldonado but didn't step up the pace for a stoppage until a stinging hurt Maldonado in the ninth to set up a final round knockdown and resulting in the fight being ended shortly after.
Rivera looks like a lightweight to keep tabs on and he looks even better as his win last year over Rene Tellez Giron is a strong one after Giron's surprising KO of former Olympian Carlos Balderas.

In the boxing challenge, I earned five points to Ramon Malpica's three to move into the challenge lead at 17-15 with the difference going to the early ending wins by Ugas and Rivera.

However, the fight of the night looked like your typical prospect match against an enhancement talent.
You know the drill, it's what is done by all managers and promoters as they guide their young prospect through the early stages against no-hopers, Gatorade bottles, and jello-jaws that are often from non-hotbeds for boxing such as West Virginia, Kentucky, etc to roll up spectacular wins.
Well, tonight was one of those rare nights where the prospect and management get a surprise.
Undefeated (5-0) middleweight Raymond Guajardo faced 5-3-3 Clay Collard from Utah in what looked to be one of the bouts that I described above.
Collard had fought formerly for Dana White's UFC and the fellows that try boxing after mixed martial arts training usually don't punch very hard, their boxing technique isn't great and they are often poor defensively, so this didn't look like an unusual bout.
The fight didn't take much time to start as the pair immediately started swapping leather and usually, it's the prospect scoring a knockdown in these spots, but instead, it was Collard scoring the knockdown.
It didn't seem like Guajardo was badly hurt after the first knockdown, but a second knockdown was scored by Collard and this time Guajardo was on his sea legs, but as Collard charged in, Guajardo lands a counter left hook to send Collard to the floor!
Collard rises and the pair exchange for the final minute of the round, with Collard earning a small edge.
Three knockdowns in the first round of a six-rounder with Collard winning the round 10-8.
I still had the feeling that Collard missed an opportunity when he was knocked down as Collard could have had a 10-7 round, which is quite a lead in a six-round fight.
Collard charged out in the second and backed Guajardo up, busted his nose causing some impressive bleeding and despite Guajardo scoring with his back along the ropes, Collard overwhelmed the 19-year-old and forced the referee to step in.

It was an exciting fight with one of those rare upsets that ends with the prospect losing to the normally mediocre fighter.
Collard says he is returning to MMA and Guajardo will now try to rebuild, which won't be easy.
A prospect can occasionally lose a decision early in their career at this level and bounce back as recently to two-time Olympic gold medalist Robeisy Ramirez will try to do after dropping a decision in his pro debut, but it's a bad sign when the prospect is stopped early.
Against that level of competition, prospects are facing fighters that are usually average punchers at best, if you cannot take their best, how do you expect to take the best punches as you move against better fighters?
Boxing is a crazy game.

Boxing Challenge: Title Fight Joke, Contenders win.

Part two of the boxing challenge discusses the matches that I didn't have a chance to watch quickly and we start with the live bout shown on Fox as part of the PBC preview for the Pacquiao-Thurman card as Caleb Plant defended his IBF super middleweight title for the first time with a third-round crushing of undeserving challenger Mike Lee.
Plant dropped Lee once in the first and finished Lee off after three more knockdowns in the third.

I have been critical of Caleb Plant for his boring style and kid gloves handling by his promoter, but he impressed me with his title victory over Jose Uzcategui and even though he proved nothing as he blew out Lee, who had never fought anyone approaching even a fringe contender and hadn't fought in thirteen months, I was glad to see Plant do what fighters do against overmatched opponents- take them out quickly and look great doing it.
I wrote when Plant won his title that I foresaw several undistinguished opponents in his reign before he would eventually have to face a quality opponent and the defense against Lee wasn't a good start to making me incorrect, but I would like to see Plant against someone better and gauge just what type of boxer he is.
Hopefully, his promoters will have some faith in him and give us a better opponent than a Mike Lee type in his second defense to see where he stands in the division.

The bigger joke was the IBF, who usually is the most reasonable of the sanctioning bodies, stamping this mismatch with their approval as a title fight.
Considering the above notes with Mike Lee having never faced anyone remotely considered a ranked fighter, had fought at light heavyweight rather than super middleweight and hadn't fought in a year, this was a joke of a title event with PBC at fault for making this match and the IBF even more so for sanctioning it.
If PBC wanted to showcase Plant on the free portion of the card against Lee- Fine, do so as an over the weight non-title fight at light heavyweight and avoid cheapening the title with mismatches such as these.
Champions often face fighters that aren't in their class, but to face someone of the stature of Lee should not be stood for by the sanctioning body.
Call me a crusty purist, but I think more of the "true" championships than this.

Yordanis Ugas scored a first-round knockdown as the ropes kept former WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa from falling to the mat and bullied the smaller man throughout the fight to win a unanimous decision as the top supporting bout on the Pacquiao-Thurman card.
Only a fifth-round point deduction for holding kept Ugas from a perfect scorecard as I had him winning every round (119-107) over Figueroa, who lost for the first time in his career.
Ugas will be the WBC's mandatory challenger for the winner of the Shawn Porter-Errol Spence unification fight in the fall and Ugas lost a controversial decision to Porter ( I scored the fight a 114-114 draw) back in March, so he'll be a deserving challenger.
As for Figueroa, who once looked to become a possible star with an exciting style before inactivity slowed his ascent, I'm not sure where he goes from here despite only one defeat.
Figueroa didn't look strong enough to compete with the top welterweights and I'm not sure he could make the junior welterweight limit of 140, so he may be in quite the career pickle.

I still have Luis Nery's knockout of Juan Carlos Payano in the queue, so I'll update this after I have had the time to watch that one from the PBC card.

In London, the Matchroom/DAZN main event saw Dillian Whyte dominate most of the fight before being knocked down by an Oscar Rivas uppercut in the ninth round.
Rivas hurt Whyte after Whyte lifted himself off the floor, but by the end of the round, Whyte had begun to battle back and moved back into controlling the remaining three rounds.
Whyte's win earned him a minor WBC belt, but more importantly, became the mandatory contender for the WBC's real title that is held by Deontay Wilder.
I scored Whyte an easy 117-110 winner (10-2 minus the knockdown) and I think his challenge of Wilder will be a good one, win or lose as Whyte's fights usually are filled with action and even when they are a step down in action, Whyte has a flair for the dramatic as he showed in this win over Rivas.

Boxing Challenge: Porter squeaks by Ugas

The Boxing Challenge weekend saw three champions successfully defend their titles, albeit with various controversies from two states and platforms.

From Carson, California at the don't call it StubHub Center, Shawn Porter squeezed by mandatory contender Yordenis Ugas by split decision to keep his WBC welterweight championship and hopes of bigger fights to come in the future alive.
Porter is known for his hard-driving, punishing style that wears fighters down as a strong fullback does in football and yet against Ugas, a taller, lankier fighter that uses range well, Porter decided to box from the outside, gave Ugas the best chance for the former Olympic bronze medalist to win and as noted, barely won on the scorecards.
I scored the fight even at 114-114, but sometimes a fight can be even on the cards and have the "feel" of one guy "winning" such as when I scored Usyk-Breidis last year even at 114 but noted that the same "feel" going the way of Usyk.
Using that "feel", I can see where observers can look at Ugas as the "winner", but in no way was this a robbery (hence the no Hamburglar picture) and their styles didn't really mesh together to make this a fight that was filled with exchanges that made a rematch palatable for anyone, at least right away.
The biggest question to me was this one-Did Porter fight differently because that was the gameplan or did he feel weaker with the near-miss on the scales and felt physically weaker?

In the other bout from Carson, undefeated heavyweight hitter Efe Ajagba ripped through aging Amir Mansour when the corner stopped the fight for Mansour after two rounds.
Ajagba scored two knockdowns in the first and pounded Mansour in the second causing the early ending.
Mansour tried to fight back, but Ajagba was too young and too big as he impressively passed his first test.

Moving to DAZN from Verona New York, the title bouts were very one-sided with the challengers combining to win two rounds on my cards with almost identical scores.
Dmitri Bivol won eleven out of twelve rounds and with the exception of appearing to be somewhat stung at the end of the eleventh round by Joe Smith, won about everything you could win in a fight to retain his WBA light heavyweight championship.
Bivol didn't knock down the rugged Smith but used his impressive boxing skills to dominate and control him otherwise in winning 119-109 on my scorecard.

My scorecard read 119-108 for Maurice Hooker in a unanimous decision win over Mikkel LesPierre, who took a licking in lasting the distance.
LesPierre showed grit in making the count after being crunched to the liver in a ninth-round knockdown but was not very competitive in the loss.
Hooker took four attempts to make the weight and by that could be well suited to consider a move to welterweight, but almost the top talent in that division resides with either PBC or Top Rank and Hooker should stay where he is to stay at 140 pounds.

Light heavyweight Callum Johnson might not have the skills of the top light heavyweights as he showed in being knocked out in his challenge to IBF champion Artur Beterbiev last year.
Johnson also showed in knocking Beterbiev down that he has serious power and if he lands, he can hurt even the top fighters in the division.
Seanie Monaghan is a limited fighter that is overmatched at the world-class level that can be very entertaining when matched properly.
Johnson is clearly a full step above Monaghan as he busted up Monaghan's face in the first round, dropped him twice in the second round with the bell saving from a likely stoppage and then finished him with booming punches seconds into the third.
Johnson has a punchers chance against anyone in the division, while Monaghan's level seems to be at the clubfighter watermark.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 9-7 with the two point difference being the decision wins by Dmitri Bivol and Maurice Hooker.
I regain the lead in the challengeat 50-49

Boxing Challenge: Porter decisions Garcia.

The boxing weekend saw another strange weekend all around, but let's start with Showtime's three-bout card that had the vacant WBC welterweight title on their marquee' as their main event with two former champions in Shawn Porter (IBF) and Danny Garcia (WBC) attempting to fill the title stripped from Keith "No Time" Thurman for inactivity.

In a good, but far from great fight, Shawn Porter rallied from a slow start to win the vacant WBC welterweight title via a close, but unanimous decision over Danny Garcia in Brooklyn.
No knockdowns and I scored Porter a 115-113 victor.
The narrow victory showed just how close the welterweight division is just behind the pair that I think are the best in the division in Errol Spence and Terence Crawford.
Keith Thurman defeated both Porter and Garcia in fights that could have been given to either fighter and now Porter and Garcia participated in a similar fight.
What that tells me is that you could put any combination of Garcia, Porter, and Thurman in the ring and get a close and decent fight with the winner depending on the particular night.
I would make any of the three a competitive underdog against either Spence or Crawford.

In the co-feature, Yordanis Ugas became Porter's mandatory contender with a dreadful unanimous decision over Cesar Barrioneuvo.
It wasn't the fault of Ugas, but still, it was a long and tedious 12 rounds and despite his winning streak of late, I still think Ugas is a cut below championship level.

Over on HBO, the one-time mother ship of boxing devoted another card to the junior bantamweights with all three fights at 115 pounds.
Superfly 3 might not have been the action slate of the previous two events, but two of the three fights were solid enough.
Juan Francisco Estrada earned his rematch with Srisaket Sor Rungvisai with a unanimous decision over Felipe Orucuta in a better than expected, but a clear- cut victory.
The fight was close for eight rounds, but Estrada took command down the stretch as he won the final four rounds on my card on his way to a 117-111 win on my card.

Donnie Nietes appeared to have won the vacant WBO junior bantamweight title with a decision over Aston Palicte, which was closer than I expected (116-112 Nietes), but far from an entertaining fight.
The entertainment was still to come as one judge scored it a draw (not a good score, but arguable) and then another scored an insane 116-112 for Palicte card to have the fight end in an unpopular draw.
The worst part of this decision means that since this was for a vacant title, the WBO will order a rematch.
Hurray.

Kazuto Ioka, a former multi-division champion, returned from a brief retirement to make his American debut controlled McWilliams Arroyo and won unanimously on the judges cards
Ioka scored the only knockdown late in the third round and was never threatened in a lopsided, but competitive fight.
Ioka was the most impressive fighter on the card against the toughest competition and it will be interesting to see what's next for him.
I scored Ioka a 98-91 winner (8-2 in rounds, with the knockdown).

DAZN made its American debut with a free fight on Facebook as Amir Khan continued his comeback against Samuel Vargas, who was last seen by American fans being pounded by Danny Garcia.
The fight showed Khan's power (Dropping Vargas in the 2nd and 3rd), his soft chin (Dropped by Vargas late in the 2nd and had there been another minute in the round, Vargas may have pulled the upset) and his underrated boxing ability (he dominated Vargas thereafter) in notching a unanimous decision.
I had Khan a 98-90 winner, but struggling with a journeyman like Vargas makes me wonder how Khan is going to fare against the better fighters or the two fighters that he is rumored to be facing next- Kell Brook or Manny Pacquiao.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica had a big week in scoring ten points (two points for wins by Khan,Porter, Ugas, Estrada, and Ioka) to my six ( two points for Estrada's and Ioka's win and one each for wins by Khan and Ugas).
I lead the overall challenge 133-111.

Caught for coverage for now, I plan on a passings piece later tonight from the road office.

Boxing Challenge:Groves exposes Eubank and Hamburglar Alert!

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The boxing challenge was similar to the last two weekends in boxing as there may have been a large number of bouts domestically, but once again it was the World Boxing Super Series without an American television home stealing the show from a live stream.

The WBSS moved to their first semi-final in the super middleweight division with a sizable amount of interest in an all-UK faceoff with both the WBA title and a berth in the finals on the line as George Groves earned the biggest victory of his career with a unanimous decision over Chris Eubank. Jr.

The choice in this bout was one of the hardest for me to make in quite a while as both fighters had reasons to pick them and pick against them and despite my rooting for Groves through the years, I had concerns about him winning on the big stage and hesitantly selected Eubank.
I was happy to be wrong in this case as Groves used his jab to control the fight's tempo and distance, befuddling Eubank and leaving him frustrated and settling for wild shots that found air more often than Groves.
Eubank did hurt Groves in the final round after Groves suffered a separated shoulder (more on that soon) and showed signs of the power that made him a betting favorite, but Groves hung on and took a clear decision (117-111 on my card) and a trip to the finals.
The shoulder injury to Groves does throw a wrinkle into the tournament plans for the finals as it is unlikely to see Groves be ready to make a return to the ring by June 2nd on the planned date for the finals against next week's winner of the Callum Smith-Jurgen Braehmer tilt.
As for Eubank, he showed the same lack of discipline that he did in his only previous loss to Billy Joe Saunders and looked to be a fighter looking for his identity in the ring.

We move back across the Atlantic for five challenge bouts on two networks from PBC and yet another mostly disappointing evening.
PBC started with a two-fight show that ran way long since a scheduled squash match for talented prospect Carlos Balderas surprisingly lasted the four round distance and the result of that decision saw the PBC running competition against itself for a while.

The main event wasn't as bad as it could have been considering that it matched the continuing comeback of Devon Alexander against the usually excuse-filled performances from Victor Ortiz.
It was not only scheduled for 12 rds instead of the standard 10, I was shocked to see the WBC sanctioned this as a title eliminator since Alexander had won just once in his comeback and Ortiz hasn't had a win over a contender in years.
It was better than expected, mainly because despite being decisively outboxed and having his eye puffed, Alexander wasn't a banger in his prime and the sometimes soft Ortiz hung in there likely because he wasn't getting seriously hurt.
As the Showtime card started and this fight moved on, it appeared that the only question for the judges was the margin for Alexander as watchers prepared to move to Showtime.
I didn't have many questions as I saw Alexander a huge 118-110 winner, but it was time to bring out the Hamburglar as the cards were stunning at 115-113 for ORTIZ!? with two more at 114-114 for a majority decision draw and the early favorite for the awful decision of the year.
I suppose it wouldn't be a Victor Ortiz fight without something odd happening and say what you will about Ortiz in the ring-the happenings are never dull when Ortiz is around.

The other fight was really bad as Caleb Plant handily (119-109 on my card) won an IBF title eliminator over trialhorse Porky Medina to near a shot against new IBF champion Caleb Truax and the world's first ever all-Caleb world championship fight.
The less said about this the better and Plant is deadly dull to watch.

The drawn-out card on Fox caused me to miss most of the curtain raiser on Showtime as Yordanis Ugas won yet another eliminator in the welterweight division (there were three on the day) this one of the IBF variety with a seventh-round knockout of Ray (missing any sugar) Robinson.
I saw the knockout but missed the first six rounds, so no scoring on the Ugas victory.

The second bout saw a rematch of a fun fight from last year as David Benavidez defended his WBC super middleweight belt for the first time against the man he defeated for the vacant title-Ronald Gavril.
Benavidez had won a narrow split decision in their first fight, had claimed he was ill for that fight and wanted an immediate rematch to remove all doubt.
The doubt was removed as Benavidez dominated on his way to a unanimous decision that saw Gavril win the final round on my scorecard to avoid being shutout (119-109).
The talented 21-year-old champion dominated Gavril with his jab and proved that there would be no need for a third encounter any time soon.
I have a feeling that this time next year that we might be discussing David Benavidez and Gilberto Ramirez in a title unification bout as the latest big fight that boxing fans will miss out on due to the issues with promoters and networks...

The main event was one that I wasn't really excited about as Danny Garcia returned to the ring for the first time in nearly a year against the shopworn Brandon Rios in yet another welterweight eliminator, the second of the evening for the WBC.
If they had half as many title defenses as eliminators, Keith Thurman's nickname wouldn't be used as a metaphor for how often he fights!
Rios, a former Zabbie winner, had been fed journeyman Aaron Herrera last June for his first win since 2015 to revive his name to be fed to someone in the future,
Garcia had a mixed bag for the evening- the good news is that he knocked Rios out with a strong right that saw Rios rise but had the fight ended by referee Kenny Bayliss in the ninth round.
I had Garcia ahead 79-73 (7-1 in rounds) entering round nine and despite the protest of Rios for the fight being stopped, Rios clearly dropped his left and invited the Garcia right that ended a long night from the PBC, so he can only blame himself for a loss that frankly should give him pause of getting out of the business.
Rios is dreadfully slow and having his best days at lightweight, Rios lacks any pop remotely resembling his power at lower divisions, the time may be right for him to consider walking away.

The bad news for Garcia?
Danny was hit far more than he should be by someone of Rios' speed and you cannot blame that all on rust.
Garcia, even in his wins, hasn't been the same fighter at 147 as he was at 140 and now he's beginning to get hit more often?
I thought Garcia won almost every round, but Rios scored enough to hold some interest and I wonder if Garcia has seen his best fights in the back window?

The evening wrapped with one of those pro wrestling style shouting matches that seem to follow the PBC almost every telecast and especially when you have any combination of Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, and Garcia around.
These three constantly challenge each other for future matches, street fights, hot dog eating contests and whatever else floats their boat on that evening.
It's getting to the point that it's simply silly that these things constantly happen between the three and nothing seems to ever come of it.
It's tired, old and much of it seems to be poorly acted.
Here was a tweet of mine from last night about this situation and for the record-Thurman and Garcia are the first two named with Porter being the third.

PBC 147 problem-Three guys all roughly the same level,two of them with an over inflated opinion of their value and skills that aren't really interested in top fights. The 3rd will fight almost anyone, but is a hair less talented- None of them want any part of @ErrolSpenceJr

— R.S (@ThoughtsofRS) February 18, 2018

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 6-4 on the night and moved my overall lead to  22-18.
I scored two points each on wins by David Benavidez and Caleb Plant with one point wins from Danny Garcia and Yordanis Ugas.
Ramon added two points for Benavidez with one each from Plant and Garcia.

Hoping to have an episode of Fightheads this week on the podcast to talk about these fights and next weekend's fight in the World Boxing Super Series and finally a good card coming from HBO!!

Boxing Challenge:Mayweather stops McGregor

At the end of a big boxing weekend, I had earned 12 points with Ramon Malpica adding seven to put the boxing challenge at 116-102.

In the fight that excited many, but not me, Floyd Mayweather showed signs of age and rust from being 40 and out of the ring for two years before rallying to stop Conor McGregor in the tenth round.
I thought McGregor won the first three rounds, but none thereafter and I had Mayweather ahead 87-84 before the stoppage by referee Robert Byrd.
I'm going to give this a little more than I thought I would so here are a few thoughts.
Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor are brilliant.
Mayweather wasn't going to be hurt by the supposed big bombing McGregor, who learned that being a big puncher in what he does in the UFC doesn't translate to boxing and McGregor wasn't going to be overwhelmed by Mayweather offensively, so neither were going to be hurt.
Mayweather looks to be a spent force at 40 and he needs to take his vow seriously of retiring for good.
Had this been an Errol Spence, Canelo Alvarez, or Gennady Golovkin in the ring last night, Mayweather likely would have hung his first L.
As for McGregor against the same bunch, the fight would have likely ended in half the rounds that this one did.
McGregor looked awkward but looked better than I figured and won a few rounds, which is more than many had done against Mayweather.
Give him credit for exceeding expectations, but keep in mind, the "big hitter" was walked down and stopped by Floyd Mayweather, who hadn't stopped anyone that hadn't dropped their hands to talk to the ref (Victor Ortiz 2011) since Ricky Hatton in 2007!
Better than expected, but still nothing I had to see...
Ramon and I both added two points for the Mayweather KO win.

The undercard was underwhelming as expected.
Mayweather Promotions supposed future superstar Gervonta Davis had a rough weekend as he failed to make weight so he forfeited his IBF junior lightweight title on the scales, got hurt in the seventh round of his bout with Francisco Fonseca before fouling Fonseca with a punch to the back of the head and referee Russell Mora counting Fonseca out rather than penalizing Davis and giving Fonseca a rest period in round eight.
I had Davis ahead 68-65 when the fight ended.
Davis is going to have to do better than this in the future if he is going to be the star that Mayweather hopes he will be.
Ramon and I earned two points each for this bout.

In the most impressive bout of the evening, Badou Jack was impressive in his light heavyweight title debut by taking a secondary light heavyweight title with a fifth-round demolition of Nathan Cleverly.
Jack won every round on my card and I would think that PBC would be pointing him towards WBC champ Adonis Stevenson, but first mandatory challenger Dimitry Bivol awaits.
I would favor the hard-punching Bivol in that bout, so don't be surprised if Jack vacates his minor title for a Stevenson bout, which could be a very entertaining fight.
Ramon and I each earned one point for the win by Jack.

In the PPV opener, Andrew Tabiti won a unanimous decision over former champion Steve Cunningham in a cruiserweight fight.
I haven't seen that fight, so no scoring there.
I added two points for the win by the undefeated Tabiti, while Ramon picked Cunningham.

In a Fox televised prelim affair, Yordanis Ugas won a unanimous decision over Thomas Dulorme in an entertaining scrap.
Ugas knocked down Dulorme twice in the second with Dulorme returning the favor with a seventh-round knockdown.
Dulorme had points deducted for illegalities twice and those cost him the fight as he lost by one point on two cards.
I scored Ugas a 94-92 winner in a fight that would have been five-five on my card if using the rounds system.
I gained two points for the win by the former Olympic bronze medalist with Ramon picking Dulorme.

Over on HBO, two world titles were on the line from Carson, California.
Miguel Cotto won every round from the constantly attacking Yoshihiro Kamegai and won a unanimous decision to win the vacant WBO junior middleweight title.
Kamegai took some huge shots and kept coming, but as good as Cotto looked, he never hurt Kamegai and I told Fred Landucci as I watched that I saw some slowing from Cotto, who was getting hit more than he should from the crude Kamegai.
Cotto says he'll fight one more time before he retires and wants the Golovkin-Alvarez winner, which I'm sure he prefers Alvarez to turn out to be the winner.
Ramon and I each won one point for the Cotto decision...

I only saw the last two rounds of the HBO opener as Rey Vargas won a unanimous decision over Ronny Rios to keep his WBC junior featherweight title.
I added two points for the Vargas win with Ramon adding one.

Now that boxing is finished for the weekend, I hope to start on my New York trip soon.
Keep in mind that Fightheads will be returning in eight days and I've missed it more than I thought.
Can't wait to return to the air...