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Floyd Mayweather Teaches Ortiz To Protect Himself At All Times…AVILA RINGSIDE

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MayweatherOrtiz_HoganphotosIt doesn’t pay to display bad sportsmanship unless you’re Floyd Mayweather, who knocked out Victor Ortiz while he was shaking hands for a flagrant head butt  on Saturday.

Ortiz (29-3-2, 22 KOs) was having a difficult adjustment fighting the undefeated Mayweather (42-0, 26 KOs) in his first mega Las Vegas fight at the MGM Grand.

Just when Ortiz seemed to acclimate to the high level boxing of the lightning Mayweather by connecting with some strong combinations, he jutted his head forward in an attempt to butt Mayweather in round four and referee Joe Cortez stopped the fight to deduct a point. That’s when the hi-jinx began.

As Ortiz attempted to apologize by hugging Mayweather a second time he lowered his hands and Mayweather lowered the boom with a right and left hook as the referee, who’d been looking at the timekeeper, looked stupefied when he realized what had happened. Ortiz dropped to the floor and did not beat the count.

“He blind-sided me,” said Ortiz who shrugged his shoulders after the fight. “I took the break exactly as I was told. Then boom. I’m not a dirty fighter and I apologize for the head butt.”

Before the end it was all Mayweather as Ortiz tried to figure out the puzzling speed of the multi division world champion.
Lead rights found the mark early for Mayweather, who established it early in the first round. Ortiz scored some counters and looked to be in a countering mode beginning in round one.

Ortiz picked up the pace a bit in round two landing some thudding body shots. Still, Mayweather’s lead right kept landing repeatedly though Ortiz connected with a big right hook that shook Mayweather. But not enough to win the round.

Those right hands from Mayweather kept coming one after another in round three. Ortiz changed up a bit by moving side to side. During an exchange of blows Mayweather connected first with the right before Ortiz’s left.

Ortiz’s finally began to understand Mayweather’s movements in round four and landed several combinations that had the slippery fighter on defense. During a second blistering combination Ortiz attempted a head butt. He apologized profusely.

Maybe too profusely.

“After the break I threw a left hook and a right hand,” said Mayweather. “We have to protect ourselves at all times.”
Ortiz could not beat the count and the fight was over as a stunned crowd looked on.

Canelo

Mexico’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (38-0-1, 28 KOs) scored a sixth round knockout over gutsy Alfonso Gomez (23-5-2) despite having problems early on with the California-based fighter at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. He retains the WBC junior middleweight world title.

Alvarez floored Gomez in the first round with a stiff left jab. But after that round, Gomez befuddled the red head with clever movements and combinations that scored often.

No matter, in the sixth round Alvarez caught Gomez with a short right hand and followed it with two more. Then a barrage of blows forced the referee to stop the fight thus giving Alvarez the world title

Morales Wins WBC Junior Welterweight title

Tijuana’s Erik “El Terrible (52-7, 36 KOs) used his experience to stop Mexico City’s Pablo Cano (22-1-1, 17 KOs) at the end of round 10 to win the vacant WBC title. Cano was bloody and unable to see from both eyes.

“He’s a young fighter and he throws really hard punches,” said Morales.

It was Morales’ fourth world title in a fourth weight division.

“I’m very happy about winning a fourth world title,” Morales said. “But it was more difficult than expected.”

The title was stripped from Palm Springs undefeated Timothy Bradley for failing to defend it. Currently Bradley is in litigation over his promotional contract.

It was a good thing it was a stoppage. One judge, Tim Miller,  had had Morales winning by two points and another, Dave Moretti,  had it a draw.

“I’m a little upset I didn’t win, but I took this fight on a week’s notice,” Cano said.

Vargas Wins Close Booed Decision Over Lopez

Hometown fighter Jessie Vargas grabbed a split-decision win over Riverside’s Josesito Lopez after 10 rounds of back and forth pummeling in a junior welterweight bout with world title implications.
Many in the crowd booed the decision.

Vargas (17-0, 9 KOs) had entered the ring under the Mayweather Promotions banner and maybe that helped as two judges scored it for the Las Vegas product despite a point deduction for a low blow.

Lopez (29-4, 17 KOs) was not surprised by the judges. He had suffered another loss years ago to a Las Vegas based prizefighter. It was déjà vu.

“I already knew that I had to punish him and punish him even more to win a decision in Las Vegas,” said Lopez, who suffered a loss to another Floyd Mayweather fighter, Wes Ferguson, that many felt Lopez beat too. “I should have done a little more.”

Judges Patricia Morse Jarman and Duane Ford scored it 96-93 and 95-94 respectively for Vargas. Judge Dick Houck had it 95-94 for Lopez.

Other bouts

Oklahoma City’s Carson Jones (32-8-2, 22 KOs) started slowly but after two rounds turned on the after burners with uppercuts and body shots to stop Las Vegas boxer Said Ouali (28-4, 20 KOs)  at the end of round seven for a technical knockout win in a bout.

Canada’s Adonis Stevenson (15-1, 12 KOs) pummeled Dion Savage (10-2, 6 KOs) from the opening seconds and floored him with a counter left hand from a southpaw position. Savage got up and defended from a peek-a-boo position, Stevenson had no problem getting through as he battered through the high guard until referee Tony Weeks stopped the fight at 1:57 of round one.

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Keith Thurman Returns with a Bang: KOs Brock Jarvis in Sydney

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The combination of age and ring rust made Keith Thurman a tricky proposition against Brock Jarvis, but the 36-year-old Floridian, a former WBA and WBC world welterweight champion, had too much firepower for the overmatched Aussie, knocking out Jarvis in the third round tonight in Sydney and setting up a massive fight with Tim Tszyu.

Thurman’s career has been repeatedly interrupted with injuries. He missed all of 2023 and 2024 and this was only his second fight back since being out-pointed by Manny Pacquiao in 2019. He was slated to fight Tszyu in March of last year in Las Vegas with two 154-pound straps on the line, but pulled out with a biceps injury and was replaced by Sebastian Fundora who saddled the snakebit Tszyu with his first defeat.

Against Brock Jarvis, Thurman started slowly. The TV commentating team, which included Tszyu and Shawn Porter, had the busier Jarvis winning the first two rounds. But the savvy Thurman was simply “processing data” and found his grove in the third frame, smashing Jarvis to the canvas with a combination climaxed by a wicked uppercut. Jarvis staggered to his feet but was a cooked goose and the referee waived it off immediately when Jarvis hit the deck again after absorbing a harsh left hook. The official time was 2:19 of round three.

It was the second bad loss for Jarvis (22-2), a noted knockout puncher who had previously been stopped in the opening round by countryman Liam Paro. He hails from the Sydney suburb of Merrickville which also spawned Hall of Famer Jeff Fenech, Jarvis’s former trainer.

Thurman advanced to 37-1 with his twenty-third win inside the distance. According to Tszyu’s promoter George Rose, the match between Thurman and Tszyu will finally come to fruition on July 6, likely at the Gold Coast Convention Center in Broadbeach. That’s predicated on the assumption that Tszyu wins his next fight without complications which comes on April 6 against Minnesota’s 19-1 Joey Spencer at Newcastle, Australia.

Other Bouts of Note

Melbourne Middleweight Michael Zerafa, who also covets a match with Tim Tszyu, improved to 33-5 (21 KOs) with a seventh-round stoppage of Germany’s obscure Besir Ay (19-2) who was on the deck twice before the referee waived it off. This was the second fight back for Zerafa after getting pulverized by Erislandy Lara who stopped him in the second round in March of last year. Ay, 35, is recognized as the middleweight champion of Germany.

In a middleweight match slated for 10, Tim Tszyu’s longtime sparring partner Cesar Mateo bombed out Sergei Vorobev in the fifth round, ending the match with a spectacular one-punch KO. The 26-year-old Mateo (18-0-1, 11 KOs) is a native is a native of Tijuana. Vorobev (20-3-2) is a 30-year-old Sydneysider born in Russia.

Thurman vs. Jarvis, a pay-per-view event in Australia, aired in the U.S. on a tape-delay on the PBC youtube channel.

Photo credit: Grant Trouville / No Limit Boxing

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Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

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Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

March 7 was an unusually heavy Friday for professional boxing. The show that warranted the most ink was the all-female card in London, a tour-de-force for the super-talented Lauren Price, but there were important fights on other continents.

Brighton

Michael Conlan, who sat out all of 2024 on the heels of being stopped in three of his previous five, returned to the ring in the British seaside resort city of Brighton in a shake-off-the-rust, 8-rounder against Asad Asif Khan, a 31-year-old Indian from Calcutta making his first appearance in a British ring.

Conlan, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist who famously signed with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks, is now 33 years old.  Against Khan, he was far from impressive, but did enough to win by a 78-74 score and lock in a match with Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion.

Conlan, who improved to 19-3 (9), absorbed a lot of punishment in those three matches that he lost. With his deep amateur background, Michael has a lot of mileage on him and he would have been smart to call it quits after his embarrassingly one-sided defeat to Luis Alberto Lopez. His frayed reflexes speak to something more than ring rust. Heading in, Khan brought a 19-5-1 record but had scored only five wins inside the distance.

Conlan vs Khan was the co-feature. In the main event, Brighton welterweight Harlem Eubank, the cousin of Chris Eubank Jr, improved to 21-0 (9 KOs) with a dominant performance over Conlan’s Belfast homie Tyrone McKenna. Eubank was credited with three knockdowns, all the result of body punches, before referee John Latham had seen enough and pulled the plug at the 2:09 mark of round 10. It was the fourth loss in his last six outings for the 35-year-old McKenna (24-6-1).

Harlem Eubank wants to fight Conor Benn next and says he is willing to wait until after his cousin “wipes Benn out.” Chris Eubank Jr vs Benn is slated for April 26 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The North London facility, which has a retractable roof, is the third-largest soccer stadium in England.

Toronto

Local fan favorite Lucas Bahdi and his stablemate Sara Bailey were the headliners on last night’s card at the Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The event marked the first incursion of Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions into Canada.

Bahdi, who is from Niagara Falls but trains in Toronto, burst out of obscurity in July of last year in Tampa, Florida, with a spectacular one-punch knockout of heavily-hyped Ashton “H2O” Sylva. His next fight, on the undercard of Jake Paul’s match with Mike Tyson, was less “noisy” and the same could be said of his homecoming fight with Ryan James Racaza, an undefeated (15-0) but obscure southpaw from the Philippines who was making his North American debut.

Bahdi vs Racaza was a technical fight that didn’t warm up until Bahdi produced a knockdown in round seven with a sweeping left hook, a glancing blow that appeared to land behind Racaza’s ear. The Filipino was up in a jiff, looking at the referee as if to say, “this dude just hit me with a rabbit punch.”

The judges had it 99-90, 97-92, and 96-93 for the victorious Bahdi (19-0) who was the subject of a recent profile on these pages.

Sara Bailey, a decorated amateur who competed around the world under her maiden name Sara Haghighat Joo and now holds the WBA light flyweight title, successfully defended that trinket with a lopsided decision over Cristina Navarro (6-3), a 35-year-old Spaniard who “earned” this assignment by winning a 6-round decision over an opponent with a 1-4-3 record. The judges scored the monotonous fight 99-91 across the board for Bailey who improved to 6-0 and then returned to the ring to assist her husband in Lucas Bahdi’s corner.

Also

Twenty-two-year-old super bantamweight Angel Barrientes, a Las Vegas-based Hawaii native, delivered the best performance of the night with a one-sided beatdown of Alexander Castellano whose corner mercifully stopped the contest after the seventh round as the ring doctor stood in a neutral corner chatting with the referee.

The gritty Castellano, who hails from Tonawanda, New York, brought an 11-1-2 record and hadn’t previously been stopped. A glutton for punishment, he appeared to suffer a broken orbital bone. Barrientes improved to 13-1 (8 KOs).

The show was marred by an excessive amount of fluffy gobbledygook by the TV talking heads which slowed down the action and made the promotion almost unwatchable.

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fighting in his hometown, super flyweight David Jimenez scored a lopsided 12-round decision over Nicaragua’s Keyvin Lara. The judges had it 120-108, 119-109, and 116-112.

Jimenez, now 17-1, came to the fore in July of 2022 when he upset Ricardo Sandoval in Los Angeles, winning a well-earned majority decision over a 20/1 favorite riding a 16-fight winning streak. That boosted him into a title fight with the formidable Artem Dalakian who saddled him with his lone defeat.

Jimenez’s victory over Lara was his fifth since that setback. It sets up the Costa Rican for another title fight, this time against Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who acquired the WBA 115-pound title in July with an upset of Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Lara, who unsuccessfully challenged Ioka for a belt in 2016, falls to 32-7-1.

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Price Conquers Jonas on an All-Female Card at Royal Albert Hall

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Ben Shalom’s BOXXER Promotions was at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall tonight with an all-female card topped by a welterweight unification fight between WBC/IBF belt-holder Natasha Jonas and WBA champion Lauren Price.

Liverpool’s Jonas, who turns 41 in June, has had a sterling career, but Father Time has caught up with her. The 30-year-old Price, an Olympic gold medalist, had faster hands, faster feet, and hit harder. The classy Jonas (16-3-1) acknowledged as much in her post-fight interview: “She beat me to the punch every time.”

The scores were 100-90, 98-92, and 98-93.

In advancing her record to 9-0 (2), Price built a strong case that she is the best fighter to come down the pike from Wales since Joe Calzaghe. As for her next bout, she hopes to fight the winner of the March 29 rematch in Las Vegas between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan. That match, with all of the meaningful welterweight hardware at stake, would be a hot ticket item if potted in Cardiff.

Semi-wind-up

Caroline Dubois staved off a late rally to successfully defend her WBC lightweight title with a majority decision over South Korea’s spunky Bo Mi Re Shin. The judges had it 98-92, 98-93, and 95-95. Although the 95-95 tally by the Korean judge was quite a stretch, Shin performed far better than the odds – Dubois was a consensus 35/1 favorite — portended.

Dubois, a 24-year-old Londoner trained by Shane McGuigan, is the sister of IBF heavyweight title-holder Daniel Dubois. Reportedly 36-3 as an amateur, she advanced her pro record to 11-0-1 (5). Heading in, Shin (18-3-3) had won nine of her previous 10 with the lone setback coming via split decision in a robust fight with Belgium’s Delfine Persoon in Belgium.

Other Bouts of Note

Kariss Artingstall returned to the ring after a 14-month absence and scored a unanimous decision over former amateur rival Raven Chapman. The scores were 98-91, 97-92, 96-93.

The prize for Artingstall, who happens to be Lauren Price’s partner, was the inaugural British female featherweight title and a potential rematch with Skye Nicolson who would relish the chance to avenge her last defeat, a loss by split decision to Attingstall in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Nicolson, who was part of tonight’s broadcast team, defends her title later this month in Sydney against Florida’s Tiara Brown.

It was the first 10-rounder for Artingstall (7-0). Chapman (9-2) had an uphill battle after Artingstall decked her in the second round with a straight left hand.

In a mild upset, Jasmina Zopotoczna, a UK-based Pole, won a split decision over Chloe Watson, adding Watson’s European flyweight title to her own regional trinket. One of the judges favored Watson 97-93, but each of his colleagues had it 96-95 for the Pole. Although there was no great furor, the verdict was unpopular.

Zapotoczna, who fought off her back foot, improved to 9-1. It was the first pro loss for Watson who is trained by Ricky Hatton.

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