OLYMPICS ASSESSED: Shields Rocked, The Men Stumbled Badly in London

Published

13 years ago

August 15, 2012

Shields Rocked That gold tasted sweet to the Flint Fury, Claressa Shields. But her effort can't mask the sour taste of a medal-less effort from the men's side in London.

From an American perspective, the 2012 London Olympics will be remembered as Claressa Shields' Games. Better that, better to look on the bright side that is the gold medal obtained by the 17 year old brashtalker from Flint, Michigan than to ponder for too long the ignominy that is the performance by the men's side of the squad.

Zero medals. The nine guys didn't take home so much as a bronze, and if not for the high schooler from Flint, and a bronze taken home by fellow female Marlen Esparza, the US would have been saddled with the buzzkill fact that every US squad came back home with at least a bronze. (In the first year boxing was in the summer Games, 1904, only Americans took part. Ah, the good old days…)

I refuse to diminish middleweight Shield's feat, her 19-12 win over Russian Nadezda Torlopova, and I haven't heard anyone suggesting Shields' or Esparaza's wins get an asterisk, but the women's side featured 12 boxers apiece in three weight classes as opposed to 10 classes of up to 30 men apiece. Yeah, it was a thin debut class. Still, I like Shields, with her solid basics and asskicking 'tude to bring home the top medal even in a deeper field.

The nine guys who gloved up for the US I hope chipped in for at least a decent gift basket for Shields, the Flint Fury, daughter of a streetfighter, because if she didn't win a gold, the snapback on the guys would have been bordering on vicious.

Rau'Shee Warren's opening round loss, his third in a row, is a negative standout from the London fiasco. The Ohioan got a bye to start, but was dumped out by Nordine Oubaali, a Frenchman, 19-18. Probably time for the three-time loser to exit the am ranks; he's just 25, so he could of course try again, and aim for Brazil in 2016, but perhaps his style is better suited for the pros. “It's kind of telling me it's time to move to another level,” he said after the loss, an indication of the direction he will head in.

Bantamweight Joseph Diaz Jr. gave reason for optimism, before the men's chances funneled down the drain, with a 19-9 opening round win over Pavlo Ishchenko of the Ukraine. The kid from Cali, who started boxing at age eight, showed some nice traits and skills, as the 19 year-old lefty put his punches together quite often against the loser, and used body work to good effect. In the round of 16, he was paired with Cuban Lazaro Alvarez, age 21, who took bronze home with him. The judges said Diaz lost, 21-15, but Teddy Atlas and Bob Papa of NBC didn't love their tally. Atlas thought Diaz should have won the second round, and had a cushion entering the third round. “I though Diaz carried the fight,” Atlas said. Many are high on Diaz' chances as he pivots to the pro game; the kid with a six-grader's face has a nice back story, having learned to box after being bullied in school. No reason some promoter doesn't market him to the same folks who revere Justin Bieber.

Californian lightweight Jose Ramirez, age 19, got off to a solid start, winning a 21-20 decision over Frenchman Rachid Azzedine in the round of 32. He showed a long jab, exhibited some decent footwork at times, but had a tendency to get a bit wild against a semi-crude foe. Ramirez met up with Uzbek Fazliddin Gaibnazarov in the next round. He started slowly, a trait that annoyed many watchers of the US crew. (Volume is key in this scoring system, and history doesn't often favor patient tacticians. I mean, the scorers might miss a scoring blow during a flurry, but you can be sure they won't give you a point if you aren't throwing but rarely.) Down 12-5 entering the third, Ramirez got hungry and aggressive, while Gaib tried to run and hold to run out the clock, but it was too little, too late, and the Uzbek scored a 15-11 win. “Most likely I'm going to go professional,” he told KFSN, of Fresno. “I'm going to step up to a pro career and we'll see where that takes me. I know it's going to be exciting. I know a lot of companies have been looking at me for a long, long time. And now they're excited to know that I'm going to turn pro.”

Jamel Herring, the 26-year-old Marine out of Long Island, didn't make it out of the first round. In his light welterweight tangle, he lost 19-9 to Daniyar Yelessinov of Kazkhstan. He could have in retrospect tried to be first more during the fight. Props to the captain of the squad for not getting down, though, and keeping on encouraging his mates after he lost his tussle. Does he have a pro career in him? Let's see how he does if he works with a top-level trainer.

Texan Errol Spence was the last hope for the men's team, but he lost a 16-11 decision to Russian Andrey Zamkovoy in the welterweight quarterfinals last Tuesday. He'd actually lost his opener to India's Krishan Vikas, but that loss was overturned on appeal, because Vikas held excessively. In the loss to the Russian, Spence too often let the winner be first, and will need to fix that moving forward.

“It leaves a bad taste in all our mouths,” Spence told NBCOlympics.com after his loss. “We all have great athletes. We didn't think we were going to come out here and not be winning medals. After this Olympics, our whole organization needs to get together and come up with a new gameplan to get back on top.” Sensible words from the Texan, who will head to the pro ranks.

Cleveland's Terrell Gausha, who trains in California, got our hopes up with a stoppage win in his opener. The middleweight, who has some issues with wildness, and balance, took out Armenian Andranik Hakoyan, displaying a nice aggressive streak. But he got stopped out in the round of 16, by Indian Vijender Singh, by a score of 16-15. “I disagree with that decision,” Teddy Atlas said after. “I disagree with much of what I've seen in the Olympics boxing competition.” He used the “C” word, “corrupt,” when talking to a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and he delved deeper into that to TSS, which you can check out a bit later. The 24 year-old is leaning toward turning pro, and Atlas singled him out as one of the guys he liked, especially for his aggression and desire.

Marcus Browne of Staten Island, NY liked his chances to leave London with a medal, telling me before his first match, “I'm not cocky, but confident. I'm not going to say I might lose, settle for silver. I know I have what it takes to win gold, but I got to put the work in. I've put my foot in my mouth a couple times, and don't like the feeling.” But Aussie Damien Hooper outworked the 21 year-old light heavyweight, who wasn't able to ramp up in the crucial third round, when Hooper turned on the juice, after being down 6-5. Hooper scored a standing eight late, while the New Yorker spent too much time avoiding contact rather than causing it. At the end, Hopper scored a 13-11 victory. One can see Browne having better luck with smaller gloves and no headgear, however.

Our heavyweight entrant, Michael Hunter II, didn't manage to get the gold he wanted to honor his dad, the late Michael Hunter I, who is remembered as a decent pro and mainstay on USA's “Tuesday Night Fights.” Against Russian Artur Beterbiev in the round of 16, the opener for both men, he fought on the back foot a great deal, engaged in regular clinches and looked to be gassed out a bit more than you'd like after three rounds. The score after three stood at 10-10 and the Russian got the nod through a tiebreaker against the Las Vegan. Being a heavyweight, you expect that he will sift through a few offers and transition to the pro game, always on the lookout for a Klitschko Killer, or at least, someone who can test the Brothers K. Or someone who can at least be presented to the people as a plausible foe.

Californian Dominic Breazeale made the leap from football to boxing, but it is hard to picture the super heavyweight who played QB at Northern Colorado as being a factor in the near future as pro, let alone a Klitschko Killer. Dom got a bye, but then was handed a tough task in the round of 16, in Magomed Omarov of Russia. The 26 year-old didn't register a point in the first round, and his form lagged as his energy waned, and he lost by a 19-8 score. Does he he really dig boxing, or does he see boxing as a so-so substitute for an NFL career? That remains to be seen.

Cover Girl Marlen Esparza, the flyweight from Houston, defeated Karlha Magliocco from Venezuela in the quarters, 24-16, and clinched a bronze then and there. Her stellar smile dimmed in the semi, against China's Ren Cancan, who defeated the 23 year-old. Ren, a 10-8 winner, waited and countered Esparaza in a bout which featured warnings to both boxers for inactivity. Esparza has nice basics, punches in bunches, is a slick mover and could clean up in the endorsement arena. She says she's leaving boxing and heading off to college. “My body is falling apart already,” she said to KHOU.com. “I’m in sports medicine four hours a day.”

Queen Underwood, a lightweight from Seattle, Washington has to be seen as a winner, just for getting to London. Her dad was jailed for a sex crime, she started running with a druggy crowd and tried to commit suicide, before getting her head together, and finding structure in boxing. yes, yet another of the hundreds of people annualy who use boxing to better themselves, give them structure, purpose and a concrete goal. Great Britain's Natasha Jonas beat Underwood, 21-13, in the round of 16. She was visibly emotional in a post-fight interview, needing time to collect herself and stave off tears, showing an admirable level of desire.

The lady who leaves London as the standout star in the States, Shields, just 17, showed some of the fire, and fury and desire that was too often absent in the guys' efforts. She downed by a score of 18-11 vet Anna Luarell, age 32, of Sweden in the quarters, showing some of the best pure boxing instincts of any fighter, male or female, on the US squad. Next up was Marina Volnova of Kazakhstan, who was no match for the Flint Fury. Shields scored two knockdowns, won all four rounds and exited with a 29-15 win. Her foe had ample international experience, something the US team, with shoddy leadership and funding, hasn't enjoyed of late. Volnova since 2008 fought in China, Turkey, Russia, Greece and Poland, while Shields has never crossed an ocean. But that same fire and resolve that had her deciding to leave her parents house to live with her aunt in Flint carried her to a win over a more tested opponent. “I didn’t have to, I just decided,” she told NBC regarding the move to her aunt's. “I’ve always wanted to live with Tammy to help my boxing.” Contrast that sort of confident decision-making and candor with some of the knucklehead yapper pros who are Twitter legends, and it just makes you like Shields that much more. Last Thursday, Shields became the youngest Olympic boxing champion since 1924, as she downed Nadezda Torlopova, a Kazakhstani boxing for Russia. Shields didn't have a problem showing an elder, age 33, that all US teens aren't bloated gamers. Shields' body work, which didn't show up in the points column, affected Torlo, who didn't know how to handle bunches of punches flying at her face and gut. No one couldn't love Shields' head movement as she slipped a Torlo combo in the final round, in which she stayed aggressive, but smart, while protecting a 15-10 lead going into the final frame. She's been fighting for six years, but you either have an instinct for fighting, or you don't, and Shields just does. Her brain contains the knowledge to do it the right way, physically, and her character is of a variety that I dare say a few of the guys from this London squad would do well to emulate.

Check back a bit later, and hear what Teddy Atlas, who called the boxing for NBC, has to say about the US showing; warning, Teddy pulls no punches. We'll ask a couple other smart folks what can be done to get the US boxing program back to a respectable level.

Comment on this article

Post Views: 900

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Michael Woods

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

Published

51 minutes ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

History-has-Shortchanged-Freddie-Dawson-One-of-the-Best-Boxers-of-his-Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary allegation had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show that the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10^th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11^th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 68

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

4 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 1,608

Share The Sweet Science experience!

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

4 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 1,277

Share The Sweet Science experience!