Weekend Boxing Wrap-Up: Budler, Spencer, Rodriguez, Azim and More

South African light flyweight Hekkie Budler, who has had a very interesting career, set himself up for another world title shot on Saturday in Mexicali, Mexico, with an upset of Mexicali’s Elwin Soto, the former WBO 108-pound world title-holder. Soto, 25, was the younger man by nine years, but he couldn’t hold off Budler who scored the bout’s lone knockdown in the final round to eak out a narrow decision (114-113 across the board) in a bout that without the knockdown would have been ruled a draw.

Budler (34-4, 10 KOs) has been a 12-round fighter since early in his career. He’s appeared in 23 fights sanctioned for one title or another. His signature win was an upset of heavily favored Ryoichi Tagouchi in Tokyo. Ironically, that fight was also scored 114-113 across the board.

Elwin Soto, who was 19-2 heading in, was a consensus 6/1 favorite over the South African invader. The locale loomed large in shaping the odds but Budler’s relative inactivity was no less salient. He had missed all of 2019 and 2020 and would be making his first start in 30 months.

Budler vs. Soto was framed as a WBC eliminator. That makes Budler the mandatory opponent for Japan’s newly-crowned Kenshiro Teraji. If he chooses to go in a different direction, an intriguing fight awaits with Jonathan Gonzalez who stripped Soto of his title by split decision in Fresno last year and successfully defended his belt on Friday with a unanimous decision over Filipino challenger Mark Anthony Birraga. And don’t rule out a rematch with Soto who was off-balance when Budler scored the decisive knockdown, leaving Soto more surprised than hurt.

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An even bigger upset was forged on Thursday in Montreal where Dante Jardon upended Artem Oganesyan. Jardon had Oganesyan on the deck in the opening round and went on to win a clear-cut, 10-round decision.

A super welterweight who was 13-0 (11) heading in, Oganesyan, a 22-year-old Montreal-based Russian, is managed by Camille Estephan who also manages Artur Bieterbiev. Estephan had been touting him as a smaller version of Beterbiev.

Mexico City’s Jardon, who improved to 35-8, has proven to be quite the spoiler. In August of last year, he went to Sheffield, England, and scored a ninth-round stoppage of Sheffield’s previously undefeated Anthony Tomlinson. Jardon is a former world title challenger but back then he weighed only 130 pounds.

The Oganesyan-Jardan match was on the undercard of a show headlined by a 10-round match between Canadian-Armenian super middleweight Erik Bazinyan and Argentina’s Marcelo Esteban Coceres. Bazinyan improved to 28-0 (21) with a wide 10-round decision over Coceras (30-4-1) who was the first fighter to extend Edgar Berlanga the distance in a 10-round fight.

Middleweight Steven Butler and junior welterweight Yves Ulysse were victorious in other undercard bouts as was super welterweight Mary Spencer who stepped in up class and stole the show with a smashing first-round knockout of Uruguay’s Chris Namus. Spencer had Namus, a former IBF world title-holder, on the canvas three times before the bout was halted at the 1:56 mark of the opening round.

At age 37, Spencer has little time to waste if she wants to make her mark in this sport, but she’s very good. A three-time world amateur champion, she lost a four-round split decision to Claressa Shields on Shields’ turf in Michigan in 2017. An Indigenous Canadian on her father’s side, Spencer is 6-0 (4) as a pro and has yet to lose a round.

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Also on Thursday, Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller returned to the ring on a small show in Buenos Aires after an enforced absence of more than three years and won a unanimous decision over hard-trying but overmatched Ariel Esteban Bracamonte.

If there were a Hall of Shame for fighters who have failed tests for banned substances, Big Baby would have the largest plaque in the joint. Against Bracamante, who brought an 11-7 record and been stopped five times, he weighed in at 341 ¾ pounds, 25 pounds heavier than his career high, but actually looked in better shape than his flabby Argentine opponent.

It was a workmanlike performance in the words of ringside scribe Diego Morilla. Big Baby lost a point for a low blow in round four, but prevailed on scores of 97-92 across the board, advancing his ledger to 24-0-1 (20).

Kazakhstan’s heavyweight hopeful Ivan Dychko, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, was also on the card and, akin to Big Baby Miller, went 10 rounds against a local man with a flabby physique who proudly stayed the course, exceeding expectations.

Dychko had won all 11 of his previous pro fights by knockout. He topped Kevin Espindola (7-4) by scores of 100-90 and 99-91 twice.

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In Coventry, England, on Saturday, local fan favorite Sam Eggington (32-7, 18 KOs) stayed relevant in the 154-pound class with a hard-fought, 12-round unanimous decision over Poland’s spunky Przemyslaw Zysk (18-2). All the talk, however, was of 20-year-old phenom Adam Aziz who blasted out Belgium’s Anthony Loffet in 66 seconds on the undercard.

Azim, whose older brother Hassan Azim followed him into the pro ranks, is trained by Shane McGuigan whose stable also includes WBO world cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie and WBA secondary heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois. McGuigan has called Azim an unbelievable talent and predicted that he will go on to transcend the sport, an opinion echoed by Amir Khan who parlayed an Olympic medal at age 17 to become a big star in the U.K.

That’s high praise and Azim (5-0, 4 KOs) didn’t disappoint on Saturday. He had Loffet on the deck in the first 25 seconds and was so dominant that Loffet’s corner tossed in the towel before the first round was half over.

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Adam Aziz and Mary Spencer turned in show-stopping performances on their respective cards, but the prize for the best performance in a high-profile fight goes to boxing’s youngest reigning world champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez who delighted his hometown fans with an eighth-round TKO of Srisaket Sor Rungvisai on a Matchroom show in San Antonio.

Rodriguez turned heads in February when he out-pointed veteran Carlos Cuadras for the vacant WBC super flyweight title. Rodriguez, who took the fight on six days’ notice and was moving up a weight class, impressed the cognoscenti and his footwork and his utilization of angles, inviting comparisons to Vasyl Lomachenko.

Against Sor Rungvisai, Rodriguez (16-0, 11 KOs) had the fight well in hand before dropping Sor Rungvisai in the seventh round with an overhand left. In the following frame, he pinned the Thai veteran against the ropes and strafed him with a fusillade of punches, forcing the stoppage.

Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez would be a shoo-in for Breakthrough Fighter of the Year if the year ended today. When the next quarterly pound-for-pound surveys are released, his name will inevitably appear in the “also receiving votes” category. The polish he displays at the tender age of 22 is another feather in the cap of his trainer Robert Garcia who will be Anthony Joshua’s main man in the corner when Joshua opposes Oleksandr Usyk on Aug. 10.

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