Hurd-Rosario battle to draw

      I've always thought that there is a place for veterans to continue to box past their prime with the caveat that they have to be matched very carefully and preferably against each other.

A perfect example of this was last night's ProBox main event between former junior middleweight champions Jarrett Hurd and Jeison Rosario in a ten-rounder at middleweight.

Neither fighter looked like a title contender but since they were on the same level, the former titleholders put on an entertaining fight that ended in a draw.

Both fighters landed their share of punches with Hurd landing more and Rosario hitting with the harder punches.

Hurd may have lost the fight in the final two rounds, holding a lead on my card, Hurd allowed Rosario to control the distance in those rounds, both won by Rosario with the rally giving him the draw on my card at 95-95.

Two judges scored the fight 96-94, one each for Rosario and Hurd, with the deciding judge marking a scorecard of 95-95.

I think a rematch would be acceptable especially if it meant that it kept either of the two wouldn't be matched against a contender or talented prospect.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica; 115 Pts(0) 

TRS: 106 Pts (0)

Vince Samano: 58 Pts (0)

Road Trip: Race Horses and Storm Chasers

     The road trip to Omaha rolled on as we spent the day with Ryan, who showed us the sights of his new hometown.

Ryan. Cherie and I saw the various markets and attractions of Omaha, but for me, there were two stops that I wanted to see most of all, and Ryan was kind enough to make that happen.

The first stop that I really wanted to make was a return to Omaha suburb Gretna and Werner Park, the home of the Omaha Storm Chasers, the AAA affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.

One thing that I didn't know before the trip was that the Storm Chasers didn't use the same ballpark downtown that is used for the College World Series.

I just assumed that was the case and was surprised to hear that the Storm Chasers had their own facility.

Werner Park didn't stand out from the interstate, and it seemed to be tucked away in an area filled with industrial businesses and homes, but it was easy to find and had plenty of places to park, unlike the urban stadiums, where parking is always a pain.

Walking outside the stadium is a beautiful statue of Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson, an Omaha native who also attended Creighton University in the city.

The statue is very well done and captures Gibson's release from the mound perfectly.

We didn't stay very long, long enough to hit the team store, snap a few pictures, and watch enough to count Werner Park on the visited stadiums list.

We then returned to Omaha to look for a small monument to the racehorse Omaha, who was the third horse to win the Triple Crown, and who lived out his life in Nebraska after a poor career at stud.

Ak-Sar-Ben (Nebraska spelled backward) Race Course was the center of Nebraska horse racing before being torn down in 2005, and somewhere in the area, Omaha is buried.

The remains weren't found when the facility was razed, although occasionally writers use modern methods to try to pinpoint where they may rest.

Now the area is called AkSarBen Village with an entertainment village, a park, and an arena that hosts events for the Nebraska-Omaha sports teams.

We would return to the hotel afterward for the evening to prepare for a Memorial Day cookout the following day at Ryan's, which I had a surprisingly good time considering that it combined the outdoors and meeting new people, neither of which are noted as favorites of mine.

In our next and possibly final installment, we start our final day in Omaha, travel to Lincoln, say goodbye to Ryan and family, and take the long way home.

It is possible that there could be two posts depending on the length of the post.

 

Boxing Challenge

    It's a rare weeknight entry in the boxing challenge as two former unified junior middleweight champions in desperate need of a jolt to sagging careers meet in Florida on a ProBox TV card.

Not only did both men hold two titles, they held the same two (WBA and IBF) and could have faced each other with a different result or two.

Jarrett Hurd was flying high in 2019 with two titles and wins over Erislandy Lara in a fight of the year candidate (yes, it's true Erislandy Lara and fight of the year in the same sentence), Austin Trout, and Tony Harrison had Hurd set for a Northern Virginia homecoming that was setting up for another big unification chance against Jermell Charlo.

Instead, Hurd was upset by Julian Williams and it's been all downhill ever since as Hurd lost a split decision to Luis Arias in 2021 and then was stopped in the tenth round in March 2023 to Jose Resendiz before a recent win in a squash match.

Jeison Rosario was known as a hard puncher with a questionable chin (Rosario's one loss at that time had been by sixth-round KO to veteran Nathaniel Gallimore) entering a 2020 title attempt against Julian Williams in his homecoming fight in Philadelphia (even more parallels).

Rosario shocked Williams with a fifth-round KO, taking the WBA and IBF belts, and placing himself in the title unification picture against Jermell Charlo.

Charlo would take the titles in five rounds from Rosario, and Erickson Lubin knocked Rosario out in six rounds in his next fight.

Rosario won three straight against lesser competition before Brian Mendoza stopped him in five rounds in 2022 and has one low level win since.

This brings us to tonight's fight in Florida- two former unified champions who haven't looked good in their most recent fights but perhaps could get the fire going against a veteran of their own age with struggles of their own.

Rosario's the bigger puncher but possesses the weaker chin.

Hurd has the better skills but has looked severely slowed (in other words "Swift" hasn't been speedy) since his title loss, so who really knows how this is going to play out.

Could this be an entertaining slugfest between two fighters who can't avoid the other?

Or will this be a snoozer with two faded former champions unable to fire punches and settling for clinches?

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica: Hurd Unanimous Decision

TRS: Hurd KO 7

Vince Samano: Rosario KO 8

The Grand Prize Game!

 If you are over thirty-five, you may remember the "BOZO Show" and their  Grand Prize Game, in which buckets were lined in a row, and one by one, each ball is tossed in a bucket until the player missed.

I'm going to use that premise and offer one recent nugget for each of the teams/sports that I follow closely.

I was surprised to hear that MSG Networks and the New Jersey Devils moved away from Erica Wachter as their studio host for Devils games.

I liked Wachter's work (she also appears on MLB and NHL Network), and she had good chemistry with her studio partner, Bryce Salvador.

No word on her replacement on the Devils broadcasts.

The Cleveland Browns reached out for a player from their past to help solve an injury issue when they traded a 2026 sixth-round draft choice to the Seattle Seahawks for center Nick Harris and a 2026 seventh-round draft pick.

Harris was the Browns' heir apparent at center but injured his knee in training camp in 2022, which allowed veteran Ethan Pocic to cement himself as the starter.

Cleveland drafted Luke Wypler at the position in 2023 and Harris signed with Seattle as a free agent in the past off-season but Wypler suffered an ankle injury in the preseason opener and Harris's Cleveland experience made him an attractive option to replace Wypler as the backup.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have re-signed the three core players of their franchise to contract extensions in the off-season, with the agreements with Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen, but one decision still remains- a decision involving Isaac Okoro.

Okoro is a restricted free agent, and some rumors have spread about a possible sign-and-trade with the Brooklyn Nets.

Okoro could take the Cavaliers qualifying offer and remain with the team, which would be okay with me but Okoro's skills and below-average shot make him less desirable as more than a situational player off the bench.

Newcastle United start their season at home against Southampton, in what is the Saints' return to the Premier League after a one-year absence.

The drama around the Magpies is about their attempted signing of Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace.

Crystal Palace was asking sixty-five million (English Pounds) and turned down three offers for Newcastle before Newcastle offered the asking price, only to have the Eagles turn down THAT offer.

I'm all for negotiations but if Newcastle felt they were willing to meet the asking price of the player, why didn't they just offer it on the second try rather than the fourth?

I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if Guehi is worth this cost or not, but Newcastle might have to go all in for him or end with no considerable additions to a team that wishes to return to Champions League play next season. 

We wrap up with this thought from boxing.

With the IBF forcing their talented welterweight champion Jaron "Boots" Ennis to fight a rematch against Karen Chukhadzhian, it started me thinking about fights that didn't deserve a second fight that were forced by sanctioning bodies.

In their first fight in January 2023, Ennis won each of the twelve rounds in a fight that managed to do the unexpected- make Ennis look ordinary.

Chukhadzhian ran, Ennis chased, and after the decision, most thought that we wouldn't hear from Chukhadzhian again.

Chukhadzhian has won three times since against middling opposition but one of those came in an IBF eliminator against England's Harry Scarff and when Cody Crowley was forced to drop out of his scheduled title try against Ennis due to an eye injury (replaced by David Avanesyan), Ennis still needed to make a mandatory defense and now that man is Chukhadzhian, leaving boxing fans with a fight that no one asked for once, let alone twice.

This made me think of Marvin Hagler being forced to fight Fulgencio Obelmejias twice by the WBA.

Obelmejias was 30-0 in January 1981 against weak opposition when the WBA mandated his title chance and Obelmejias fought fairly well in his first attempt at Hagler before being stopped in round eight.

Obelmejias rebounded with eight straight wins, with the best win as an eighth-round stoppage of future super middleweight champion Chong-Pal Park to return to the top of the WBA rankings and another mandated chance against Hagler.

Twenty-one months later, the rematch no one wanted other than the WBA and maybe Obelmejias occurred in Italy with Hagler dominating before knocking Obelmejias cold with a fifth-round left hook.

Fast forward five years, and Obelmeijas finally became a world champion when he won a unanimous decision over old rival Chong-Pal Park to win the WBA super middleweight championship in 1988.

Obelmejias lost the title in his first defense to In-Chul Baek and won his final three fights before retiring.

Boxing Challenge: Mbilli defeats Dereyvanchenko

      The boxing Saturday was all about Oh, Canada with a Top Rank/ESPN card from Quebec City and while the headliner earned the victory, he may have looked just vulnerable enough to give other contenders a willingness to face him in the future.

Christian Mbilli's unanimous decision win over Sergey Dereyvanchenko may not have created a new star but the victory certainly helped his rise through the division as the best of his career.

Mbilli attacked in his usual aggressive style and won the first three rounds although Dereyvanchenko scored well at times and when Dereyvanchenko took control with an excellent round four, the fight looked like it was going to be a close fight from there.

Except it wasn't.

Dereyvanchenko damaged his bicep in winning the round and it naturally limited his effectiveness, leading Mbilli to control the remainder of the fight against a game but outmanned opponent.

Mbilli won easily at 100-90, 99-91, and 98-92 (I scored 98-92 for Mbilli), and while he didn't tarnish his image in victory, he didn't dazzle either against an aging opponent who was unable to use one of his hands.

Christian Mbilli is ranked near the top of the super middleweight ratings and unless his team decides to take a safe course, I'd think Mbilli would make sense for the winner of the fall Jaime Munguia-Erik Bazinyan battle.

As for Dereyvanchenko, he's thirty-eight, faces a lengthy rehab for the injured bicep, and has taken more punishment than most fighters after a twenty-one-fight career, so it might be time for him to step away from the sport.

The co-feature saw Guido Vinaello stop Arislanbek Mahkmudov when the doctor stopped the fight at the start of the eighth round due to incredible swelling around the left eye of Mahkmudov.

Vinello won every round on my card, battering the lumbering Makhmundov throughout the bout and hurting him on several occasions.

Give Makhmudov credit for hanging around as long as he did on courage alone but he's dreadfully slow and unless you match him against a non-mover, he's going to have big problems.

Cuban super middleweight Osley Iglesias continued his maturation with a second-round knockout over Sena Agbeko.

Agbeko was recently stopped by David Morrell in two rounds but Morrell (or anyone in Agbeko's career) failed to knock him down.

That ended against Iglesias, who knocked Agbeko down late in the first round and finished him early in the second.

Iglesias is developing into a potential future star at 168 pounds.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica: 115 Pts (3)

TRS: 106 Pts (6)

Vince Samano: 58 Pts (3)

Boxing Challenge

    The boxing weekend is based in Quebec City, Canada with three fights of interest.

In the main event, exciting super middleweight bomber, Christian Mbilli, faces his sternest test to date against rugged warhorse Sergey Dereyvanchenko.

Mbilli has been devastating in his climb to the top of the super middleweight ratings and while Dereyvanchenko has lost five times (All to world champions), an argument can be made that four of his losses (Gennady Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs, Carlos Adames, and most recently Jaime Munguia) could have been scored for Dereyvanchenko.

Mbilli has shown devastating power and plenty of aggressiveness but looks to be vulnerable to a counterpunch as he attacks.

The question is this- Is a thirty-five-year-old Dereyvanchenko still capable of landing such a punch after so many grueling wars?

On the surface, this looks to be the perfect time for Mbilli to step on the world stage but Dereyvanchenko has been counted out before only to roar back with a strong performance.

The co-feature will pit two heavyweights in a crossroads matchup with both in desperate need of a victory.

Arslanbek Mahkhmudov was unbeaten in eighteen fights before being battered by Agit Kabayel in Riyadh last December, losing via fourth-round knockout.

Guido Vianello lost a close split decision to Efe Ajagba in his last bout and his only other defeat was due to an awful cut, so he could easily be unbeaten with luck.

Vianelo showed lots of heart in his losses, Mahkmudov wilted against Kabayel but Mahkmudov is the much bigger puncher, so this is a close fight to choose a winner.

Unbeaten Cuban super middleweight Osleys Iglesias returns against Sena Agbeko in a ten-rounder.

Iglesias has stopped ten of his eleven opponents, his last two both fell in the first round.

Agbekol has lost in his two tests against good opponents and was last seen being blown out by David Morrell in two rounds.

Boxing Challenge

Super Middleweights. 10 Rds

Christian Mbilli vs Sergey Dereyvanchenko

R.L and TRS; Mbilli Unanimous Decision
V.S: Mbilli KO 6

Heavyweights 10 Rds

Arslanbek Mahkmudov  vs Guido Vianello

R.L: Mahkmudov Unanimous Decision

TRS: Vianello Unanimous Decision
V.S: Mahkmudov KO 9

Super Middleweights. 10 Rds

Osleys Iglesias vs Sena Agbeko

R.L: Iglesias Unanimous Decision
TRS: Iglesias KO 2

V.S: Iglesias KO 7

Boxing Challenge: Bombs Away!

    Editor's Note: Sorry this is so late, I was on a trip.

Posts on those coming soon.

The violence in the two main events on Saturday won't be forgotten any time shortly as the two offered the type of actions that boxing fans crave and non-boxing fans can see what our sport is all about.

The biggest fight came from Las Vegas where on a Golden Boy?DAZN card, Vergil Ortiz survived a huge test from Serhii Bohachuk to win a close and somewhat controversial majority decision to win a minor junior middleweight title.

The win could give Ortiz a chance at Terence Crawford's WBO junior middleweight title in what would be a terrific pairing of two former welterweight standouts but let's not move too quickly past his savage battle vs Serhii Bohachuk.

Ortiz was the slightly more aggressive boxer and landed a few more punches but Bohachuk threw more and dictated the pace of the fight a little more in my opinion.

Ortiz's punches had a little more power but it was Bohachuk who scored knockdowns in the first and eighth rounds.

Neither punch hurt Ortiz badly and the first-round knockdown was initially scored a slip before being overturned at the beginning of round five after replay analysis that is used in Nevada.

Ortiz rallied strong in the eighth after the knockdown and on my card, his work was able to salvage losing the round 10-9 rather than the standard 10-8 in a round involving a knockdown, and he hurt Bohachuk in each of the final two rounds but was unable to drop Bohachuk.

Ortiz won the majority decision by scores of 114-112 times two and the other 113-113.

I scored the fight for Bohachuk 114-113 but I wouldn't say that I have a problem with Ortiz gaining the victory.

This battle would be my choice for fight of the year thus far and while Bohachuk deserves a rematch, I can't blame Ortiz for taking a Terence Crawford fight if offered.

Ortiz's style is exciting but he takes punishment and he could get beaten before a huge fight, so it's good business for him to cash in.

For Bohachuk, he remains a force at 154 pounds and deserves a fight against another of the division's elite as he lost little in his losing effort.

The evening's other fight may not have featured quite as much action as Ortiz-Bohachuk but the IBF featherweight title battle from Albuquerque New Mexico did have one thing they lacked- A spectacular ending that may win knockout of the year.

Angelo Leo would battle evenly with champion Luis Alberto Lopez into the tenth round with the fight hanging in the balance (I had Lopez ahead 86-85 after nine rounds but Leo ahead by the same score is very plausible).

Leo did the better work on the inside and Lopez with his Naseem Hamed-like swipes did the damage from the outside and both fighters swapped the momentum throughout the fight.

Then suddenly and conclusively the fight ended as Lopez lobbed a jab like a Bill Lee folly-floater that Leo slipped and slammed home a left hook that dropped Lopez to his back like the Road Warriors throwing pumpkins off a scaffold (I'm done with analogies now), hitting his head on the floor and even though Ernie Sharif (referee) didn't need to count, he did anyway.

Leo now holds his second world title (he held the WBO junior featherweight title briefly) and has a few options- a title unification against the winner of the WBO title rematch between Rafael Espinoza and Robiesy Ramirez, a rematch against Lopez, or possibly as the first title adversary for the talented prospect Bruce Carrington.

As for Lopez, he always makes fun fights and his name will keep him involved in the title picture for a while but he will be rebuilding himself for a bit as he'll have to prove he hasn't lost his punch resistance after such a devastating defeat.

No matter who you rooted for, there is no denying that this was one awesome evening of boxing.

Boxing Challenge;

Ramon Malpica; 112 Pts (1)
TRS: 100 Pts (1)
Vince Samano: 55 Pts (0)