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McCarson Ringside: Crawford Assesses, Destroys Dulorme

Terence Crawford (26-0, 18 Kos) dominated and stopped Thomas Dulorme (22-2, 14 Kos) for the vacant WBO junior welterweight title on Saturday night.
More importantly, the destructive and concussive force Crawford displayed against a rugged opponent showed that the 27-year-old will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.
“I worked hard in training camp,” said Crawford. “ It was just a matter of time. I was ready for anything he was going to bring me.”
Just before the action began at the College Park Center in Arlington, Texas, news blew through press row that a tornado warning might put a bit of a damper on things. Rain, hail and high winds rocked the Metroplex area enough to encourage those in charge of the HBO production crew to move their behind-the-scenes worker bees from outside the venue in the television trucks to inside the arena. But the only tornado that made its way to the venue this night was Crawford. He was a whirlwind of skill, precision and technical ability, proving to all in attendance his elite mastery of the sweet science.
Dulorme came to the ring dressed like a gladiator, but Crawford was the crowd favorite. While Dulorme wasn’t booed when he made his way to the ring, he certainly wasn’t cheered the way the Nebraskan was as he entered the arena. It didn’t hurt that he brought the stars and stripes with him to the fracas while Dulorme, in Texas, waved the flag of his native Puerto Rico as if that meant something here. Dulorme’s camp also had several small Texas flags waving in his corner but no one seemed to notice.
Things got worse for Dulorme when it was time to announce the men in their corners. This time the boisterous crowd booed Dulorme quite vociferously while Crawford, adorning a red and white hat emblazoned with the Nebraska Cornhusker logo, was applauded.The bout was immediately good. Round 1 was high-speed chess and both players knew their stuff. Crawford worked behind a jab while Dulorme did the same but more aggressively and with greater attention to the body. But Crawford’s crafty counters carried the round. As it was in the first, so the rest of the fight played: Dulorme tried his best but Crawford was quicker, faster and better. Round 2 was fought at a more measured pace but was more of the same. Crawford landed a nice counter right in Round 3. The two men engaged and traded but Crawford’s punches were again more accurate. Dulorme landed a long, looping overhand right to catch Crawford by surprise, but the Nebraskan answered with a sharp punch to the body moments later. The pace picked up. Crawford felt sure enough with his previous work to showboat at the end of Round 4. His right hand lead from an orthodox stance was his best weapon, and he started to feel as though he could land it at will. But he missed it here and there, and Dulorme didn’t seem keen on backing down from the action. It was probably his undoing. Dulorme settled in for the next few minutes behind a hard jab to Crawford’s head and body. The defensively astute Crawford blocked many of them, and he missed with counters on the others, but the strategy kept Dulorme in the fight for a few more minutes.
Coming down from 147 pounds to 140, Dulorme said before the bout that he felt like the bigger, stronger fighter and now he was trying to fight like it. But it was a mistake.
In Round 6, Crawford staggered Dulorme with a hard one-two. Crawford then proceeded to chase his prey to the ropes and put him down to the welcoming blue canvas. Dulorme rose to his feet but quickly found himself bullied back into a corner where Crawford let loose a flurry of punches until another right hand dropped Dulorme to the mat. The fighter who came to the ring dressed like a gladiator did his best to act like one. Dulorme rose bravely to his shaky feet but was soon back on the ropes getting strafed with lefts and rights until he was put down to the ground one final time. The last punch was a left hook to the temple, but it could have been anything. The gladiator was going to his knees defenseless. Referee Rafael Ramos waved it off, and the crowd in Texas cheered wildly for their man from Nebraska.
“I feel very strong in this weight division,” said Crawford after the fight, and he certainly looked it. Crawford would give no indication about who his next opponent might be. He said he would take a few months off from boxing and then come back later this year.
Whatever the case, Crawford appears to be on his way to stardom.
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Garcia Promotions’ Event in San Bernardino was a Showcase for Saul Rodriguez

SAN BERNARDINO-Saul “Neno” Rodriguez, out of action for nearly three years, returned to the prize ring on Saturday in San Bernardino at the Club Event Center in a Garcia Promotions event. San Bernardino is in the Inland Empire which is two counties just east of Los Angeles.
Riverside’s Rodriguez (24-1-1) weighed much more than the designated weight and his match with Mexico’s Juan Meza Angulo was demoted to an exhibition because of the weight disparity. Despite wearing head gear, the popular Riverside fighter was able to stop Angulo (6-1) in his first fight since February 28, 2020.
Though Rodriguez looked slightly over-weight as a super lightweight, it didn’t dampen his sharp punching skills. He immediately caught Meza with a well-timed overhand right. Luckily, Rodriguez didn’t put muscle on it. The fight proceeded.
Because of inactivity, Rodriguez seemed to relish getting back to work. He moved around and tried different combinations. Everything seemed to be working in his favor. But Meza countered a left by Rodriguez with a strong right. It proved the popular Riverside fighter needs work on bringing back his left quickly.
After Meza connected things got serious.
Rodriguez immediately opened the third round at a quicker tempo and seemed intent on changing from a wait-and-see attitude to one of bad intentions. Meza didn’t notice the change and looked to catch Rodriguez with a combo and instead was caught with a monster counter-right. Down went Meza with a thud. The fight was stopped.
Fans, many of them wearing Team Neno t-shirts, were deliriously happy to see Rodriguez back in action.
In the co-main event, San Bernardino’s Leo Ruiz clashed with granite-chinned Cameron Krael.
Ruiz (11-0, 7 KOs) unloaded horrific bombs on Krael (19-25-3) who calmly kept his gloves covering his head and although some managed to connect flush, nothing fazed the Las Vegas fighter.
Round after round Ruiz unloaded on Krael only to quickly realize that attempting a knockout was futile. The reputation of Krael’s chin was correct and no need to break a knuckle trying to score a knockout. Instead, Ruiz went six rounds and won every one to take a win by unanimous decision by scores of 60-54 on all three cards.
Other Bouts
Gabe Muratalla (9-0) knocked out Michael Nielsen (6-3) with a four-punch combination in the third round of a bantamweight fight. Body shots dropped Nielsen in the second round.
Ventura’s Jose Delgado (10-1-4), a southpaw, overcome a sluggish start with body shots to defeat San Bernardino’s Jesus Beltran (6-3-1) by majority decision after four rounds in a lightweight fight.
Riverside’s Victor Pelayo (2-0) defeated Milwaukee’s D’Angelo Hopgood (2-1) by decision after four rounds in a very close super bantamweight match. Both fighters showed solid fundamentals in a fight that could have easily been scored a draw. Pelayo won by decision 39-37 on all cards.
Riverside’s Jose Rodriguez (2-0) stopped Henry Mendez (0-9-2) in the fourth round of a super welterweight bout. Mendez was deducted a point in the second round for incessant holding after numerous warnings.
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Alexis Rocha KOs Brave but Overmatched George Ashie on DAZN.

Golden Boy Promotions’ potted their first offering of 2023 at the recently opened YouTube Theater, a 6,000-seat venue situated inside the stadium built to house LA’s two NFL franchises. The main event was a scheduled 12-round welterweight match between Alexis Rocha, a southpaw from nearby Santa Ana and George Ashie, a 38-year-old Ghanaian making his U.S. debut. Ashie was a late substitute for Anthony Young who reportedly suffered a nose injury in training. The match and supporting bouts were live-streamed on DAZN.
Ashie, who was fighting above his normal weight class and carried a career-high 146 pounds, was brave but out-gunned. Rocha knocked him down in the third frame with a right hook and hurt him several more times as the fight progressed although Ashie never stopped trying. In round six, an accidental clash of heads left Rocha with a nasty cut on his left eyebrow. He fought with more urgency after this incident and knocked Ashie out cold in the next round. The official time was 2:08 of round seven.
It was the fifth straight win for Rocha who improved his ledger to 22-1 (14 KOs). After the bout, he expressed an interest in fighting Terence Crawford. Ashie fell to 33-6-1 (25).
Other Bouts of Note
Floyd “Austin Kid” Schofield, a precocious 20-year-old lightweight, had Albert Mercado on the canvas in the second round but was unable to put him away despite hurting him multiple times and went 10 rounds for the first time in his young career.
Schofield, the 2022 TSS Prospect of the Year, improved to 13-0 (11), winning 100-89 on all three cards. Mercado, a 35-year-old Connecticut-born Puerto Rican, declined to 17-5-1 but retained his distinction of having never been stopped.
Super middleweight Bektemir Melikuziev, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist for Uzbekistan who lives and trains in Indio, California, overpowered San Diego’s Ulises Sierra who was on the deck twice from body punches before the fight was waived off at the 2:59 mark of round three. It was the fourth straight victory for Melikuziev (11-1, 9 KOs) after suffering a stunning one-punch knockout at the hands of seemingly shopworn Gabriel Rosado with whom he is pursuing a rematch. Sierra was 17-2-2 heading in with eight of his wins coming in Mexico.
In a match framed as a WBO minimumweight title eliminator, Oscar Collazo (6-0, 4 KOs) scored an impressive fifth-round stoppage of Yudel Reyes. Collazo knocked Reyes down twice in the fifth round, the second with a vicious right hand that put Reyes down so hard that the referee didn’t bother to count. The official time was 2:59 of round five.
In theory, Collazo’s next fight will come against the Filipino Melvin Jerusalem who won the title earlier this month with a second-round stoppage of Masataka Taniguchi in Osaka. Reyes, a 26-year-old Mexican making his U.S. debut, declined to 15-2.
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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Artur Beterbiev TKOs Anthony Yarde in a London Firefight

The presumption, echoed by ESPN boxing commentator Bernardo Osuna, was that tonight’s bout at Wembley Arena in London between Artur Beterbiev and Anthony Yarde would be explosive and entertaining for as long as it lasted. That proved to be true and when the smoke cleared, Beterbiev, the rugged Montreal-based Russian had retained his three light heavyweight title belts and had added another knockout to his ledger, his nineteenth as a pro in as many opportunities.
Both men landed hard shots during the fight and both were marked up at the finish. Yarde had a cut under his right eye and Beterbiev had a cut on his left eyelid.
A chopping right hand from Beterbiev late in the first minute of the eighth round marked the beginning of the end for Yarde, the muscular 31-year-old Londoner who entered the contest sporting a record of 23-2 with 22 knockouts. The punch sent him reeling backward toward his corner where he landed on his knees. He beat the count, but turned toward his corner rather than referee Steve Gray.
Gray let the bout continue, but Beterbiev pressed his advantage and after a few more unanswered punches Yarde’s trainer Tunde Ajayi stepped up on the ring apron and summoned Gray to stop it. The official time was 2:01 of round eight.
Beterbiev hasn’t lost since losing a decision to amateur nemesis Oleksandr Usyk in the quarter finals of the 2012 London Olympics. At age 38, he shows no signs of slowing down.
In his post-fight interview, the self-effacing Russian said, “I hope some day I will be a good boxer,” and acknowledged that he would welcome a unification fight with fellow Russian Dmitry Bivol, the WBA title-holder.
WBA Title Fight
In a bout that was in theory the co-feature but went off during the earlier portion of the ESPN+ livestream, Artem Dalakian (21-0, 15 KOs) retained his WBA world flyweight title with a unanimous and somewhat controversial 12-round unanimous decision over Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (12-1). The judges had it 116-112 and 115-113 twice.
An Azerbaijan-born Ukrainian, Dalakian was making the sixth defense of the title he won in 2018 with a 12-round decision over Brian Viloria in Los Angeles in his lone previous appearance at a venue in the English-speaking world. His five title defenses were in Kiev. Jimenez was coming off a 12-round majority decision over Ricardo Sandoval in what ranked as one of the bigger upsets of 2021.
A Split for the Itauma Brothers
Promoter Frank Warren’s newest signee, 18-year-old heavyweight Moses Itauma, made a big splash in his pro debut, blasting out Czechoslovakia’s Marcel Bode (2-2) in 23 seconds. Moses and his older brother Karol Itauma are sons of a British citizen of Nigerian ancestry and a Slovakian mother.
In a shocking upset, Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna, a 36-year-old Argentine who had lost six of his previous eight fights, forged a fifth-round stoppage of well-touted Karol Itauma who was 9-0 (7 KOs) as a pro coming in. Itauma ate numerous straight right hands before a straight right hand knocked him down for the count. The official time was 1:04 of round five. Maderna improved to 29-10 (11).
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