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Katie Taylor Dominates on a Female-Heavy Fight Card in London
Ireland’s Katie Taylor erupted from the opening bell with a blistering barrage of blows and never slowed down in overwhelming the strong and determined Miriam Gutierrez to retain the undisputed lightweight world championship on Saturday.
It was a perfect performance.
Taylor (17-0, 6 KOs) seemed inches from an opening round knockout over Spain’s Gutierrez (13-1, 5 KOs) at Wembley Arena in London, but discovered a chin of granite whenever she unloaded with piercing blows to the head.
“I seen how I hurt her in the first three seconds and I just had to take my time,” said Taylor of her pinning Gutierrez in a corner and blasting away with abandon.
But the Spaniard would not quit.
It took all 10 one-sided rounds to determine that the Irish speedster retains her hold on the undisputed lightweight world championship.
Round after round Taylor fired blinding combinations, some that pierced through Gutierrez’s guard and others that caught the Spaniard unaware after she fired a blow. It seemed unbelievable that the fight would go on for more than three rounds.
At the end of the fourth with seconds left, Taylor countered with a right cross and left that floored Gutierrez. The Spaniard got up a little woozy but recovered during the one-minute break.
Taylor ramped up her already blistering attack with a savage 21-punch barrage in the fifth round. But Gutierrez bobbed and weaved out of serious damage and survived the blinding onslaught.
It became the theme of the fight as Taylor whipped combination after combination with precise accuracy. Gutierrez fired back and occasionally landed.
“I definitely caught her with some great shots but she was very durable,” Taylor said about their exchanges. “She actually was very heavy-handed, she could punch a little bit.”
More remarkable was the Irish fighter’s ability to stand and fight, rather than jab and move. Taylor remained within firing distance but could rarely be hit by Gutierrez. It was the art of boxing at its best.
Two judges saw Taylor winning every round 100-90, 100-89 while a third saw it 99-91. Taylor retains the WBA, IBF, WBO, and WBC lightweight world title belts.
“I thought it was great performance. She was very tough, she kept firing back she is very durable and kept firing back,” said Taylor.
After the decision both shook hands. Gutierrez bowed to Taylor.
After the match Taylor (pictured on the left with Gutierrez holding two of Taylor’s belts) said her future has no specific direction other than promoting the sport.
“I’d fight every month if I could. If Eddie (Hearn) would let me,” Taylor said. “There’s no shortage of big fights out there. I just want to make history in the sport and inspire the next generation. Women’s boxing is on fire right now.”
Super Featherweights
WBC super featherweight titlist Terri Harper (11-0-1, 6 KOs) stopped Norway’s Katharina Thanderz (13-1) with a liver shot to retain the title in an underwhelming clash between 130-pounders.
An anticipated high voltage fight started disappointedly as Harper got on her bike and jabbed and moved for the first eight rounds. But after a clash of heads and a liver shot, in the ninth round, referee Victor Loughlin suddenly stopped the fight at 1:11 of the round. Thanderz never went down but the referee prematurely ended it.
Still, it was a needed win for Harper after her last fight was ruled a draw against Natasha Jonas.
“Obviously you get doubts. I just stuck to me jabbing and moving. I just felt more mature,” said Harper. “I caught her clean with a left hook to the body.”
Super Bantamweights
Rachel Ball (7-1) used her height and faster hands to win a unanimous decision over Argentina’s Jorgelina Guanini (9-2-2) in a fight much closer than the judge’s crazy scores.
Ball unloaded flurries of inaccurate combinations and was hit with precise counters by the much shorter Guanini that saw the Argentine win the first half. But the taller Ball kept the pressure on and was able to slip in more shots and win the second half of the 10- round WBC super bantamweight fight convincingly.
Two judges saw it 99-91 and a third 99-92 for Ball. We saw it 96-94 for Ball who missed many more than she landed.
“I’m happy. I just really wanted to fight. Just needed to fight,” said Ball. “I did walk her down. I dealt with that quite well.”
Ball said she still wants to fight for the actual WBA bantamweight world title against original foe Ebanie Bridges who was sidelined with an arm injury.
“I want to get the WBA with Ebanie Bridges,” said Ball. “If you are at this level, I want the fight.”
Men’s Bouts
Jack “Little Leaver Meat Cleaver” Cullen (19-2-1) survived a first-round knockdown and upset undefeated Scottish fighter John Docherty (9-1, 7 KOs) with a busier output to win a close super middleweight fight by unanimous decision after 10 rounds. Despite shabby refereeing that allowed Docherty to constantly hold, England’s Cullen was able to power his way to victory.
Scores for the British super middleweight elimination title fight were 96-94 twice and 95-94 for Cullen.
“I’m over the moon. I showed up who I really am,” said Cullen. “This is my life. This is what I do.”
Scotland’s Kash Farooq (14-1, 6 KOs) used an intense body attack to defeat Mexico’s super tough Angel Aviles (20-6-1) by unanimous decision after 10 rounds in a bantamweight fight. Farooq tried every round to knock out Aviles but was met with stiff resistance and dangerous counter shots. The scores were 100-90, 100-91, 99-91 for Farooq.
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 308: SoCal Rivals Rocha and Curiel Rumble and More
Avila Perspective, Chap. 308: SoCal Rivals Rocha and Curiel Rumble and More
Decades ago, battles between regional warriors were as common as freeway traffic in Los Angeles during rush hour.
Bobby Chacon repped San Fernando Valley, Mando Ramos came from the docks of San Pedro, Danny “Little Red” Lopez lived in Alhambra and Ruben “Maravilla Kid” Navarro hailed from East L.A. And they rumbled repeatedly with each other.
The boxing sphere in California has grown much larger despite the closure of boxing palaces such as the Olympic Auditorium, Hollywood Legion Stadium, Great Western Forum, the L.A. Coliseum and Wrigley Field.
Those were classic venues.
Today in the 21st century boxing continues to grow.
Golden Boy Promotions presents SoCal regional rivals Santa Ana’s Alexis Rocha (25-2, 16 KOs) facing Hollywood’s Raul Curiel (15-0,13 KOs) in a welterweight clash on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif. DAZN will stream the main card and YouTube.com the remainder.
Ontario is located in the Inland Empire known as the I.E.
Rocha, 27, has grown into a crowd favorite with a crowd-pleasing style developed by Orange County boxing trainer Hector Lopez. I remember his pro debut at Belasco Theater in downtown L.A. He obliterated his foe in three rounds and the small venue erupted with applause.
Wherever Rocha goes to fight, his fans follow.
“Anyone I face is trying to take food away from my family,” said Rocha.
Curiel, 29, has traveled a different road. As a former Mexican Olympian he took the slower road toward adapting to the professional style. Freddie Roach has refined the Mexican fighter’s style and so far, he remains unbeaten with a 10-fight knockout streak.
“I want to fight the best in the division,” said Curiel who is originally from Guadalajara.
Super welter hitters
Another top-notch fighter on the card is super welterweight Charles Conwell from Cleveland, Ohio. Conwell (20-0, 15 KOs) faces Argentina’s undefeated Gerardo Vergara (20-0, 13 KOs) in the co-main event.
Conwell may be the best kept secret in boxing and has been dominating foes for the past several years. He has solid defense, good power and is very strong for this weight class. Very Strong.
“I got to go out there and dominate,” said Conwell. “This is a fight that can lead me to a world championship fight.”
Golden Boy Promotions got lucky in picking up this fighter who could compete with any super welterweight out there. Anyone.
Vergara, 30, is another Argentine product and if you know anything about that South American country, they groom strong fighters with power. Think Marcos Maidana. This will be his first true test.
“I really hope he (Conwell) backs what he is saying,” said Vergara.
Marlen Esparza vs Arely Mucino
Former flyweight world titlists finally meet, but at super flyweight.
Olympic bronze medalist Marlen Esparza fights Mexico’s Arely Mucino in a fight that should have taken place years ago. Both are both coming off losses in title fights.
Esparza has the “fast hands” as she said and Mucino the “aggressive style” as she mentioned at the press conference on Thursday in Ontario.
It’s a 10-round affair and could mark the end for the loser.
Friday Night Fights
Undefeated middleweight Sadridden Akhmedov (14-0, 12 KOs) headlines a 360 Promotions and faces Raphael Igbokwe (17-5, 7 KOs) in the main event on Friday, Dec. 13, at Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, Calif. UFC Fight Pass will stream the event.
Akhmedov hails from Kazakhstan and if you remember legendary Gennady “Triple G” Golovkin also hails from that region. Tom Loeffler the head of 360 Promotions worked with GGG too among other legends.
Is Akhmedov the real deal?
Former American Olympian Carlos Balderas (14-2) is also on the card and fights veteran Cesar Villarraga (11-10-1) who has been known to upset favorites in the past.
Fights to Watch
Fri. UFC Fight Pass 7 p.m. Sadridden Akhmedov (14-0) vs Raphael Igbokwe (17-5).
Sat. DAZN 10:30 a.m. Murodjon Akhmadaliev (12-1) vs Ricardo Espinoza (30-4).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Alexis Rocha (25-2) vs Raul Curiel (15-0); Charles Conwell (20-0) vs Gerardo Vergara (20-0); Marlen Esparza (14-2) vs Arely Mucino (32-4-2).
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Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
Cardoso, Nunez, and Akitsugi Bring Home the Bacon in Plant City
The final ShoBox event of 2025 played out tonight at the company’s regular staging ground in Plant City, Florida. When the smoke cleared, the “A-side” fighters in the featured bouts were 3-0 in step-up fights vs. battle-tested veterans, two of whom were former world title challengers. However, the victors in none of the three fights, with the arguable exception of lanky bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi, made any great gain in public esteem.
In the main event, a lightweight affair, Jonhatan Cardoso, a 25-year-old Brazilian, earned a hard-fought, 10-round unanimous decision over Los Mochis, Mexico southpaw Eduardo Ramirez. The decision would have been acceptable to most neutral observers if it had been deemed a draw, but the Brazilian won by scores of 97-93 and 96-94 twice.
Cardoso, now 18-1 (15), had the crowd in his corner., This was his fourth straight appearance in Plant City. Ramirez, disadvantaged by being the smaller man with a shorter reach, declined to 28-5-3.
Co-Feature
In a 10-round featherweight fight that had no indelible moments, Luis Reynaldo Nunez advanced to 20-0 (13) with a workmanlike 10-round unanimous decision over Mexico’s Leonardo Baez. The judges had it 99-91 and 98-92 twice.
Nunez, from the Dominican Republic, is an economical fighter who fights behind a tight guard. Reputedly 85-5 as an amateur, he is managed by Sampson Lewkowicz who handles David Benavidez among others and trained by Bob Santos. Baez (22-5) was returning to the ring after a two-year hiatus.
Also
In a contest slated for “10,” ever-improving bantamweight Katsuma Akitsugi improved to 12-0 (3 KOs) with a sixth-round stoppage of Filipino import Aston Palicte (28-7-1). Akitsugi caught Palicte against the ropes and unleashed a flurry of punches climaxed by a right hook. Palicte went down and was unable to beat the count. The official time was 1:07 of round six.
This was the third straight win by stoppage for Akitsugi, a 27-year-old southpaw who trains at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym in LA under Roach’s assistant Eddie Hernandez. Palicte, who had been out of the ring for 16 months, is a former two-time world title challenger at superflyweight (115).
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Introducing Jaylan Phillips, Boxing’s Palindrome Man
On Thursday, Nov. 28, as Americans hunkered down at the dinner table with family and friends for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast, junior welterweight Jaylan Phillips and his trainer Kevin Henry were up in the sky flying from Las Vegas to Rochester, New York. For their Thanksgiving repast, they were offered a tiny bag of peanuts.
Phillips would not have eaten too much had the opportunity presented itself. The next day was the weigh-in. On Saturday, the 30th, he would compete in the 6-round main event of a small club show.
Phillips wasn’t brought to Rochester to win. His opponent, Wilfredo Flores, had a checkered career but he had once held a regional title and he lived in the general area. In boxing parlance, Jaylan Phillips was the “B” side. His role, from the promoter’s standpoint, was to fatten the record of the house fighter.
Jaylan didn’t follow the script. He won a unanimous decision over his 11-3-1 opponent, advancing his record to 4-3-4, and returned to Las Vegas with a new nickname, albeit not one of his own choosing or intended as a permanent accessory. This reporter dubbed him The Palindrome Man.
A palindrome is a word that spells the same backward and forward. Phillips’ current record is palindrome-ish.
It’s an odd record. One would be hard-pressed to find other active boxers with a slew of draws inside a small window of fights. It harks to the days, circa 1900, when some journeymen boxers accumulated as many draws as wins and losses combined.
A boxer with a 4-3-4 record would seem to be an unlikely candidate for a feature story, but the affable Jaylan Phillips is not your run-of-the-mill prizefighter.
Boxers, as we know, tend to be city folk, drawn from the black belts and the barrios of America’s urban places. Phillips grew up in Ebro, Florida, population 237 per the 2020 U.S. census. Ebro is in the Florida panhandle in the northwestern part of the state in a county that was dry until 2022. It is 23 miles due north of Panama City Beach but a world apart from the seaside Florida resort town and its pricey beachfront condos.
Of those 237 people, only five identified as African-American or black, or so it would be written, but the census-taker was obviously slothful. “That’s a crazy number,” says Phillips. “There has to be at least 40 or 50. And the reason I know that is that we are all related.”
“What does one do for excitement in Ebro?” we asked him. “Hunting, fishing, trapping, that sort of thing,” he said. And what does one trap? “Mostly raccoons,” he said, while adding that some of the elders in his extended family consider it a delicacy.
Phillips fought in Rochester, New York, on Saturday and was back in the gym in Las Vegas on Tuesday. He lives alone and does not own a car. His apartment, near UNLV, is three-and-a-half miles from the Top Rank Gym where he does most of his training. He jogs there and then jogs home again, this in a city where the temperature routinely exceeds 100 degrees for much of the year.
During his high school years, Phillips, now 25, concedes that he smoked a lot of weed and it impacted his grades. His interest in boxing was fueled by the exploits of Roy Jones Jr, another fighter with roots in the Florida panhandle. In his spare time, he enjoys watching tapes of old Sugar Ray Robinson fights which can be found on youtube. “He was the best,” says Phillips of Robinson who has been dead for 35 years, echoing an opinion that hasn’t diminished with the passage of time.
In his second pro fight, Phillips was thrust against a baby-faced novice from Cleveland, Abdullah Mason. Although Mason was only 17 years old, the Top Rank matchmaker did Jaylan no favors. He was still standing when the referee waived the fight off in the second round.
About the heavily-hyped Mason, Phillips says, “He’s a beast, like they say, but I would love to fight him again. I took that fight on two weeks’ notice. I’m confident the outcome would have been different if I had had a full camp.”
This observation will undoubtedly strike some as a delusion. Pound for pound, the precocious Mason just may be the top pro fighter in the world in his age group. But Jaylan isn’t lacking confidence which spills over when he talks about what lies ahead for him. “I will be a world champion,” he says matter-of-factly. And after boxing? “I see myself back home in Ebro living a humble life, hunting and fishing, but with a million dollars in the bank.”
If unswerving dedication and self-confidence are the keys to a successful boxing career, then Jaylan Phillips, notwithstanding his 4-3-4 record, is destined for big things. But here’s the rub:
“In boxing, it isn’t what you earn, but what you negotiate,” says the esteemed British boxing pundit Steve Bunce alluding to the importance of a well-connected manager. In a perfect world, each win would be stepping-stone to a bigger fight with a commensurately larger purse. But in this chaotic sport, a “B side” fighter who scores an upset in a low-level fight may actually be penalized for his “impertinence.” Promoters may be wary of using him again (the old “risk/reward” encumbrance) and, in a sport where it’s important for an up-and-comer to stay busy, his progress may be stalled.
Phillips doesn’t know when his next assignment will materialize, but regardless he will keep plugging along while setting an example that others who aspire to greatness would be wise to emulate.
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