Dwayne Haskins threw three touchdown passes and for over 400 yards and K.J. Hill caught nine of his passes for 187 yards and two of Haskins touchdown passes as Ohio State defeated Minnesota in Columbus 30-13.
Ohio State moved to 7-0 (4-0 Big Ten) and clinched a winning record with the win.
Ohio State will travel to West Lafayette, Indiana next Saturday night to meet Purdue, who has overcome a 0-3 start to even its record at 3-3 on the season.
This will be a shorter recap than usual because I had a wedding to attend yesterday, therefore, I missed some of the fourth quarter and had things to do to prepare, so the usual focus wasn't quite there.
Olentangy Offerings
1) Dwayne Haskins played well and didn't throw an interception.
Haskins didn't break the passing game record that we've heard so much about for the last week, but he did break 400 yards and that made him the first Ohio State quarterback to throw for over 400 yards twice.
2) K.J. Hill's career day came at just the right time with his being the star target of the day.
The former walk-on has become quite a force in the Ohio State passing game.
Hill has begun to make the routine catch as well as the spectacular as he showed with his one handed catch/backward stroll into the end zone for one of his scores.
3) Have some worries about the running game though as the Buckeyes rushed for less than 100 yards on the day and averaged less than three yards a carry,
Mike Weber led Ohio State with 51 yards, but between Weber and J.K. Dobbins neither broke a run of longer than 12 yards.
4) Still concerned about the back seven.
Teams are still throwing the ball against the Buckeyes and even though the team has managed to make some big plays on defense, the big plays still continue to happen.
5) Blake Haubeil was three for three on field goals, including a 47 yarder after Sean Nurenburger missed the game with a mild strain
Haubeil seems to have a plenty strong leg and the kicking game looks to be in safe hands after Nurenberger leaves at the end of the season.
6) What's the boat oar on the Minnesota helmet? I know P.J. Fleck has the "Row the Boat" thing trademarked so it can follow him to any coaching job he pursues, but it looks ridiculous on the helmet.
Fleck is lucky that he coaches the usually middle of the pack Gophers and has Jim Harbaugh and James Franklin in the league or he'd do much better than the bronze in the most annoying coach in the Big Ten derby.
Sorry, that's all for this week.
Until the paychecks start rolling in, sometimes the outside world calls!
Back later with Browns and the boxing challenge.
The Boxing Challenge is a WBO weekend with three platforms across two countries featuring title fights from the "rookie" organization.
I always call the WBO that because I refused to even recognize it for years until finally knuckling under in 2017.
The biggest fight of the weekend is for free on ESPN from Lincoln, Nebraska as arguably the top fighter in the world defends his WBO welterweight title with Terence Crawford attempting to fend off Jose Benavidez
Crawford will be making the first defense of the title that he won from Jeff Horn via stoppage where he won every round from the Australian to lift the belt from him.
Benavidez, the brother of the recently stripped WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez (Cocaine is a terrible drug, folks) was a top-notch amateur but has basically talked his way into the fight after taking 18 months before returning for two fights earlier this year against average competition.
Benavidez possesses just one win against top competition in a 2014 decision win over Mauricio Herrera that I had Herrera winning by three points.
The media work for this one might wind up being far better than the bout, but Benavidez is plenty talented and if motivated could make this interesting.
In the co-feature, Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson faces his toughest test in last-minute replacement Viorel Simion of Romania.
Stevenson, who has not shown a lot of sting on his punches, faces a far better opponent in Simion than the unavailable Duarn Vue.
Simion has only lost twice and both to world champions in Lee Selby and Scott Quigg, so he's experienced at the top level but hasn't fought since April of 2017.
Stevenson will be fighting at junior lightweight in this fight rather than his usual featherweight to placate Simion's weight for taking the fight on short notice.
On DAZN, the World Boxing Super Series returns Saturday afternoon from Russia with the first fight of the cruiserweight tournament and another in the bantamweight version.
In the bantamweight version, Zolani Tete defends his WBO title against Mikhail Aloyan.
Tete will be making the third defense of his title against Aloyan, who we know next to nothing about as a professional he has had just four fights with all of them going the distance.
What we do know about Aloyan is that he has won two Olympic medals (a silver and a bronze) and even was able to keep one of them as the silver was stripped for failing a PED trip, so he comes with an amateur pedigree that is very strong.
This one comes with so many question marks that who really knows what's going to happen.
On the same card, the cruiserweight division starts their tournament with Andrew Tabiti against Ruslan Fayfer in another fight with a ton of questions, the first of which is- Why are these doing the cruiserweights AGAIN??
Going back to the cruisers isn't going to unify any titles with last year's win by Oleksandr Usyk giving him all four titles, once you get past the top three seeds (Mairis Breidis, who gave Usyk all he wanted, the exciting Yunier Dorticos and former IBF champ Krzysztof Glowacki), the next five seeds have a combined two wins against anyone once ranked in the top 20 ( I say this because Mateusz Maternak beat former unified cruiser champ Jean-Marc Mormeck in 2014 when Mormeck was 42!!) and have more question marks than Frank Gorshin's tailor.
Andrew Tabiti owns the one win over a top opponent of late with his decision over a fading, but not finished Steve Cunningham and is trained by Floyd Mayweather Sr.
Tabiti has strong hand speed and looks the part of a champion, but as with any prospect, he needs to be tested in a step up and again who knows if he will receive one from undefeated Ruslan Fayfer, who has fought nothing but Euro's that are unknown to anyone.
I love the World Boxing Super Series and I think most of these questionable cruiserweight selections will be weeded out after round one, so the semis should be much improved over the opening round, but there had to be other divisions that not only would have been more interesting and more competitive to match up.
Golden Boy Promotions will have one of their Facebook Live cards, that likely few will watch as it's at the same time as Terence Crawford-Jose Benavidez and I just cannot imagine very many fans passing that card up in favor of Angel Acosta's WBO junior flyweight title defense against Abraham Rodriguez.
Acosta has just one loss and it's a good one- a unanimous decision to the Japanese star Kosei Tanaka, who we mentioned a few weeks ago for his great title-winning performance over Sho Kimura.
Rodriguez is a heavy underdog with his two fights this season being a loss to a 6-2 fighter and a decision win over one with a record of 4-9.
In the boxing challenge, I lead Ramon Malpica 159-136.
WBO Welterweight Title. 12 Rds
Terence Crawford vs Jose Benavidez
R.L: Crawford Unanimous Decision
TRS: Crawford KO 10
Jr, Lightweights 10 Rds
Shakur Stevenson vs Viorel Simion
R.L: Stevenson KO 8
TRS: Stevenson Unanimous Decision
WBO Bantamweight Title/World Boxing Super Series Quarter-Final
Zolani Tete vs Mikhael Aloyan
R.L: Tete KO 5
TRS: Tete Unanimous Decision
World Boxing Super Series Cruiserweight Quarter-Final
Andrew Tabiti vs Ruslan Fayfer
R.L: Tabiti KO 7
TRS: Tabiti KO 4
WBO Junior Flyweight Title. 12 Rds
Angel Acosta vs Abraham Rodriguez
R.L: Acosta KO 10
TRS: Acosta KO 6
The PPM is back again with more thoughts on this football weekend.
With the Saints on bye, there will be two NFL games of the week.
Last Week: 6-4
Overall: 43-13-1
College
Ohio State over Minnesota 34-13
TCU over Texas Tech 39-36
Western Michigan over Bowling Green 34-15
Washington over Oregon 24-18
Houston over East Carolina 40-21
Middle Tennessee State over Florida International 24-17
Boise State over Nevada 28-10
Game of the Week
Georgia over LSU 24-19
Pro
Browns over Chargers 23-21
Games of the Week
Patriots over Chiefs 30-28
Bengals over Steelers 21-16
The NHL season started last night and the New Jersey Devils stomped the defending champion Washington Capitals 6-0.
And I didn't watch a bit.
For the first time in over 15 years, I didn't buy the Center Ice package, so I likely won't have a lot of Devils coverage this season other than trades or the occasional game that I catch against Washington or NHL Network.
The last time that I didn't watch all the teams games, the Devils were playing at the pictured Brendan Byrne or Meadowlands arena and we were living in an apartment before that cable company even offered the package (they did offer it for a few years before we added Directv).
Oh, I'm still a fan and I'll be following the team"old school" style if the old school style can be considered following games online and on the radio, but some things changed and those changes made the difficult decision easier to make.
I had enjoyed the Devils games mostly alone for years, Ryan was a fan of the Ottawa Senators, Cherie never seemed as interested in the team as she did the Cavaliers and Rachel had never been much of a sports fan, so I watched them by myself for the most part.
I breezed along in my Devils fandom, perfectly content to watch arguably (along with Detroit) as the most consistent title contender of their time period battle for championships every year as from 1990-2010, the Devils would miss the playoffs just once, win three Stanley Cups and four conference titles in a pretty good run for a fan of any team, let alone the team that was arguably at times in their history the third team in a three-team market.
The Devils missed the playoffs and then began a miracle run to the Stanley Cup finals where they would lose to the Los Angeles Kings, but in that season things began to change.
Rachel started watching games on occasion and by playoff time, Rachel was cemented with fandom for the team, for Adam Henrique, and watching all the games with me.
Rachel enjoyed that run, but she wouldn't see a lot of success on the ice as the Devils began to make risky moves with veteran players who were washed up or brought injury issues with them and the franchise began to pay the price as the Devils would miss the playoffs for the next five years under a despised coach (Peter DeBoer) and one that we liked, but the team was rebuilding in John Hynes.
Rachel was still a diehard fan with trips to Hershey to see the AHL Devils, the remembered trip to meet Henrique, and more Devils items than I ever had!
We watched the games together and despite the unhappiness with the losing, it was a great time to be a fan as I was teaching Rachel the game and enjoying the one thing that we've been able to share.
Rachel made lots of friends with a popular Devils Facebook page that she produced and I even made a friend as well.
She kept the page current daily and she enjoyed doing the page, and talking to fans, even though the team wasn't a very good one.
I had always admired her dedication to Adam Henrique and remembered how it felt to have that kind of honeymoon as a fan of a player and the team.
I also knew that doesn't last forever and I had talked to Cherie more than once wondering if Rachel was more of a Henrique fan or a Devils fan and sooner or later, we'd find out.
On November 30 of last year, Adam Henrique was traded to Anaheim and I learned just how devoted she was to Henrique as she just didn't want to watch anymore, although she did watch a playoff game or two as they slid into the playoffs as the eighth seed.
What I didn't expect was this- I didn't enjoy watching as much without her and my interest waned despite the Ray Shero revamp into a young and fun-to-watch team with Taylor Hall becoming the Devils first player ever to win the league's Hart Trophy as MVP.
I did watch, but not nearly as much, and by the end of the season, when most Devils fans were sky-high about the team's future, I was wondering about watching the next season.
I waited to see if Rachel was ready to watch again and she just didn't seem to be interested, so instead of tossing 165 dollars for a package of games that I rarely watched (and the NHL is a huge gouger as you pay a separate fee for internet streaming and TV, the NBA and MLB give those to you if you buy the TV package) and only would be wondering why I wasted the money.
So, I reluctantly ended my Center Ice package (and I wonder what I'm going to do without Devils or Cavaliers every night) and I guess I'll get back into something over the winter.
The title is from the 70's film Goodbye Girl and goodbye doesn't mean forever for me either.
Perhaps a year away will reignite my fire and I'll be back next year ready for the season.'
Maybe I'll be returning to watch more college basketball or maybe it'll be nothing at all, but at 50, I never expected things to turn out this way.
To Rachel, Adam Henrique (at that time, at least) was more important than the Devils.
What I didn't expect (on a leisure time basis, anyway) was that watching the Devils with Rachel was more important than watching them at all...
We start another inbox cleaning with Pablo Escobar's Hippos.
But first, I've been so happy with the reaction to the Santos Laciar and Donald Curry posts.
I've seen several people in the boxing community whos names I know and respect have liked the posts and that means the world to me.
Hopefully, with luck, a voter or two will read and maybe consider one or both boxers HOF argument.
Pablo Escobar, the deceased Colombian drug lord, who was killed in 1993, owned a large compound filled with wild animals, including four hippos.
When Escobar was killed by the Colombian Army, the animals were shipped to various zoos across the country/world, but the four hippos were not captured and were left on the ranch.
Hippos are very difficult to transport and handle with National Geographic stating that one juvenile hippo was caught and moved to a zoo at a cost of five thousand dollars.
The herd escaped off the Escobar ranch and has moved across Colombia along with growth from the original four to an estimated forty to sixty currently.
The escaped pack is an interesting bunch to follow because scientists can see how they affect the surrounding environment.
Some think that they will have a negative effect based on eating the native plants (Hippos are herbivores), perhaps changing the water flow with their bulk changing the bottom of rivers and lakes
and should be removed from the area before damage is done.
Others think they could add to the environment by replacing long-extinct animals and replacing their positives in the area, so their belief is to leave the herd alone, follow them and see how things work out.
It'll be interesting to check back every few years and check the conditions in the area.
The Kennywood Amusement Park outside of Pittsburgh is retiring its oldest ride as the "Log Jammer" will be dropping its last visitors into the water in the fall.
The Log Jammer debuted in 1975 as a flume ride and was the first ever million-dollar ride at the park.
One of my favorite fast food place that apparently is struggling, although I find that hard to believe by the customers there, in Sonic Drive-In's now has a new owner.
The good folks at Inspired Brands, who own Arby's and Buffalo Wild Wings added Sonic to their portfolio for a mere 2.3 billion. which I'm sure was nothing at all for them to pay for the new player in their starting lineup.
I've always liked Sonic and couldn't wait for them to come to Hagerstown, but they built it at a location that I am rarely near and I think I've been there twice in the few years that they have been in business.
The Miami Herald writes of "toxic red tide, dead crabs and brown oceans" and that's before any hurricanes hit in Naples, home of Florida's current governor and candidate for a Senate seat, Rick Scott, who led a surgical snipping of so many environmental regulations in Florida.
When you allow businesses and companies free reign to do what they wish without consequences-This is the result.
I know we all groan about the various impositions that government places on us, but I'm more often than not on the side of government on this topic.
With the constant loosening of these protections by the current Presidents, I believe these types of problems will become even more prevalent as states are allowed to do what they wish.
And finally, Voyager 2 is beginning to receive some of the signs of passing into interstellar space soon.
Its sister craft Voyager 1 did so in 2012 as the only craft to do that previously and it is the numbers from that event that makes NASA believe that Voyager 2 is preparing to make the same trip.
NASA does say that it could take a little longer due to the differing conditions in that particular area of the heliosphere.
That cleans the inbox for non-sports items for now.
Still some sports items coming up soon!
I have been so gratified by the reaction to the post when I wrote about Santos Laciar and the case for putting Laciar into the Hall of Fame that I asked if anyone would want to read about the other boxer that I push for induction every year.
One of our Twitter followers had suggested that he'd like to read (he tweeted about Laciar and that led to the post on the Argentine star) about Donald Curry and I decided to make "The Lone Star Cobra's" case as well in a hybrid with a Forgotten Superstars post.
Donald Curry fought ten world champions, defeating five in a deceiving statistic with losses coming late in his career (two in his final four fights) against fighters naturally larger than him (Michael Nunn) and ranging from Hall of Famers (Mike McCallum) to exciting young champions at their peak (Terry Norris).
Donald Curry always seemed to just miss on his timing in boxing.
Curry was a member of the 1980 Olympic team, which was placed not only in between the two most successful boxing teams in American Olympic history but due to President Carter's imposed boycott was not allowed to compete at all.
Five members of the lost Olympic team would win world championships- Leroy Murphy (IBF Cruiser), Johnny Bumphus (WBA Jr.Welter), Joe Manley (IBF Jr. Welter), Richie Sandoval (WBA Bantam) along with Curry and some if not all of the above would have been much richer and well-known stars entering the pro game simply by the exposure that came with the Olympics at the time far larger than today and even bigger had they won medals in Moscow.
That would make a huge difference for Curry, who with a gold medal would have been fighting on network television as a household name, instead was fighting on a network in its infancy named ESPN and their contracted provider-Top Rank.
Top Rank's movement of Curry was a bit quicker than many prospects were moved at the time and Curry's first major win was a fourth-round KO of Bruce Finch, who had been stopped a few months earlier in the third by Sugar Ray Leonard (Leonard's victory over Finch would be the only unified title defense of his career), which placed in him in the top ten just a year and a half into his career.
Curry decisioned one-time contender Adolfo Viruet before a crossroads fight against one of the other two top welterweight prospects (Milton McCrory being the other) in Marlon "the Magic Man" Starling.
Curry wasn't overly impressive in winning a split decision, but after the fight, Curry announced he fought with bruised ribs and had major difficulties making weight,
With Ray Leonard's retirement, the two titles were vacated and each sanctioning body (WBA and WBC at the time) decided to fill the titles with separate fights.
That is yet another thing that boxing hasn't changed through the years as so much work, promotion and buildup go into unifying titles and as soon as they can break them up-they do so.
Curry and McCrory were thought of like the 1 and 1A contenders in the division and instead of a Curry-McCrory bout for the vacant title, which is what most fans would have been pleased with, each organization would use one of the two as McCrory would face Colin Jones of Wales for the WBC title and Curry's challenger would be unknown Jun-Sok Hwang of South Korea.
McCrory would fight to a draw with Jones and win a narrow split decision in their rematch, while Curry dominated Hwang in the first ever world title fight televised on ESPN, with the only blemish being a flash knockdown in the seventh on a wild Hwang right (try saying that three times quickly).
Curry quickly defended his title five times in his first two years with the first against Roger Stafford, who was the fighter scheduled to have the next title shot against Ray Leonard when Leonard announced his retirement, had pulled arguably the first major upset televised by ESPN when he decisioned Pipino Cuevas (remember Cuevas from a long-ago Forgotten Superstars?) and had gone the 10 round distance against WBC champion McCrory in a WBC eliminator.
Stafford was through in 102 seconds against the Lone Star Cobra.
Next was a rematch with Marlon Starling for not only Curry's title but the vacant title of the newly created IBF.
Many in the boxing media thought Starling, who had won six straight since his split decision loss to Curry in which he spent as much time clowning around as he did punching, was going to avenge that loss, but in arguably, Curry's finest performance to date, Curry won a clearcut unanimous decision.
Curry stopped unheralded Elio Diaz in seven before traveling to Monaco to defend against the flashy and flamboyant Nino LaRocca.
LaRocca had appeared several times on American television and Curry-LaRocca was an anticipated bout with again LaRocca being a live underdog with many picking the Italian to win on his home (or next door anyway) turf.
It wasn't close as Curry won every round before stopping LaRocca in six.
Colin Jones of Wales was looked at as a stern test after his two fights with Milton McCrory, but Curry ripped a bad cut over the right eye of Jones and the fight was stopped in the fourth.
It was the win over Colin Jones that changed the narrative on Donald Curry from who would win in a welterweight title unification against Milton McCrory to how would Curry fare at higher weights against names such as Hagler and Hearns?
Curry took a few steps to gauge the winds at junior middleweight with non-title fights against fringe contenders James "Hard Rock" Green and Pablo Baez, stopping both in two and six rounds respectively as he attempted to gain the unification bout against McCrory and do so while not fighting the scale at welterweight, which was already becoming a chore.
The McCrory fight was finally landed in December of 1985 and the classic knockout in the second round has been replayed many times with Curry avoiding a jab and dropping McCrory with a left hook that should have finished the fight, but a game McCrory rose only to be knocked out with a Curry right hand.
With such a dominant win, all three championships in hand and making the weight limit becoming more and more of a challenge, this would seem to be the perfect time to move up in weight, but instead Curry stayed with the titles at 147 with a homecoming fight in Texas that saw Curry knock out Eduardo Rodriguez in two rounds.
You would think that after a gift to the home fans, one would think Curry would now leave the division.
But as trainer/manager Dave Gorman battled behind the scenes with new manager Akbar Muhammad for control of Curry's career, Curry was reported to be 20 pounds overweight six weeks before his fight with undefeated, but little known top contender Lloyd Honeyghan of Britain.
Little did we know that we had seen the best of Donald Curry that he had to offer as the brash Honeyghan battled Curry on even terms for six rounds and seemed to be the surging fighter against an almost gaunt champion when an accidental headbutt badly cut Curry in the sixth round.
Curry surrendered the title on his stool and the one thing that I am struck by to this day- If the referee called the headbutt an accidental one, the correct call would have been to go to the scorecards.
Honeyghan was slightly ahead on the scorecards, so the winner would not have been changed, but I have wondered, would Curry have gone out and tried to fight on under those conditions?
Boxing observers still thought the result was a fluke that the managerial issues, the headbutting from Honeyghan and the weakened state from making weight all added up to a perfect ending to defeat Curry.
Curry moved to 154 pounds and notched one of the more surprising statistics in boxing, back to back disqualification wins in the fifth round as Tony Montgomery and former IBF champion Carlos Santos attempted to emulate the bullying tactics of Honeyghan and ended with the same bizarre result- being disqualified for deliberate headbutting
Still, Curry was a mild favorite against boxing's most avoided fighter (and future Hall of Famer) "The Body Snatcher" Mike McCallum for McCallum's WBA junior middleweight title.
McCallum (Or "McCullum" as Ray Leonard constantly called him in a very annoying way during the Curry fight) spent his career being dodged by the great fighters of the 80's- Leonard (retired) Thomas Hearns (the Same trainer in Emanuel Steward, McCallum left Steward to try to land a Hearns fight that never happened), Roberto Duran ( Duran vacated the WBA title rather than face McCallum as his mandatory) and Marvin Hagler, so this was a coming out party for McCallum as well as Curry's possible return to the top of the game.
After four rounds that are as good as you'll see for technical boxing ability, Curry backed up a step and dropped his hands, a technique flaw that had never haunted him at welterweight, McCallum threw another highlight left hook often shown through the years that knocked Curry down and out in the fifth round.
Donald Curry had been suing HBO commentator Ray Leonard and his manager Mike Trainor for giving "Bad Business Advice" when Curry asked them for counsel on a potential Marvin Hagler fight after the McCrory fight and their advice was to stay at welterweight.
Curry sued when he turned down the Hagler fight (Leonard would sign for his own Hagler fight shortly afterward) and when McCallum's hook knocked out Curry, the glee in Leonard's voice at ringside is quite apparent.
Curry was never the same after that, even when three fights later he would win the WBC version of the title with a unanimous decision over Italy's Gianfranco Rosi before a shocking loss in his first defense to unheralded French journeyman Rene Jacquot.
Curry had become a four to eight round fighter, where he would look like the old Curry for the first half of the fight before deteriorating quickly in the second half.
Curry tired easily, it showed visibly as fights progressed and his punch resistance dipped accordingly as well.
The Cobra was offered (after two squash wins) a shot at the best middleweight in the world in IBF champion Michael Nunn in France in 1990 and the script was the same.
Curry having early success before fading midway through and with his legs shot took a pounding for three rounds before being stopped in the tenth.
Eight months later, Curry dropped back to junior middleweight for another title shot against the best that division had to offer in Terry Norris and for seven give and take rounds gave Norris all he could handle in a fight that is often forgotten for how good it actually was, Norris ended Curry's career (other than an ill-fated two-fight comeback in 1997) in the eighth round.
Curry would finish his career at 34-6 with 25 knockouts.
I have to be honest- the case for Curry is really based on your idea of what a Hall of Fame inductee should be.
Would you rather have a very good fighter that fights at that level for a long time or a fighter like Curry that cleaned out a division, but for a short period of time of great performance?
Think of it like comparing Hall of Fame pitchers Don Sutton (Very good, but not great for a long period of time) against Sandy Koufax (Tremendous, but for a far shorter period of time).
I'm not against either, but if you were truly great but comet-like and flawed, I'm in your corner.
Donald Curry deserves enshrinement in Boxing's Hall.
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
