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‘Tank’ Davis Stops Ryan Garcia with a Near-Invisible but Lethal Body Shot
LAS VEGAS-It was a slow burning fuse that saw Gervonta “Tank” Davis explode with an almost invisible blow to stop a dangerously quick Ryan Garcia to win the battle of undefeated super lightweights on Saturday.
Few saw the slow-reacting blow.
Baltimore’s clever counter-punching Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) proved once again by knocking out Garcia (23-1, 19 KOs) in front of a sold-out crowd at T-Mobile Arena, that he’s a special fighter. Both cautious and dangerous.
Despite the catchweight demands by Davis team to weigh 136, Garcia looked strong, quick and tall in this battle of undefeated young warriors. If there was any advantage it seemed to be the rangier Garcia with his quick jabs and always cocked to explode left hook.
Davis took no chances in testing its lethalness.
The first round saw few blows landing with Garcia more aggressive. His jab and reach kept Davis moving out of range of any dangerous assaults.
Garcia opened up furiously in the second round with a dizzying display of his hand speed that forced the Baltimore fighter to grab ahold. Garcia kept punching through the attempted clinches until the referee stopped the action.
It seemed Garcia was feeling confident about his predictions of an early knockout.
After a slow first round that saw Garcia shoot out quick jabs and set up for lightning left hook counters, Davis was cautious against the taller rangy fighter with knockout power.
Davis then survived the all-out second round assault by the lightning quick and taller Garcia and proved ready with a short counter left to that jaw that sent him to the canvas. Garcia got up quickly after the knockdown, but he seldom opened up with another similar attack.
“I gave him too much respect,” said Garcia. “I thought I had him pretty hurt. But I ran into a good shot an overhand left. It didn’t really hurt. I got impatient and got caught.”
Davis said he was expecting the assault.
“I felt he was more anxious than me. You got to stay calm and don’t want to make a bad decision. Like he did,” said Davis who has faced similar dangerous foes, but not as quick.
From rounds three until end the momentum was fully in Davis favor and he racked up points with strategically placed blows that kept him ahead on points. It was up to Garcia to make a move.
Garcia did score heavily in the sixth round with lead rights that bounced off Davis’s head. But not enough to cause concern for the smaller fighter. He kept his composure always looking for the precise counter.
It came in the very next round.
Knowing he was behind, Garcia made his move and re-ignited his attacking style. Davis seemed very sure of what to do and though he was aware of the quick bursts of the taller Southern California fighter’s style, he waited for the moment. During a short Garcia volley, Davis ducked under a shot and unleashed a short body shot while Garcia fired a right to the head. Both connected but Davis’s blow was a slow-burning body shot that took four seconds to collapse Garcia to one knee. Body shots are like that, they are more painful than head shots.
Referee Tom Taylor counted out Garcia at 1:44 of the seventh round.
The large pro-Davis crowd erupted in a roar at the unexpected knockout. Few saw the blow until it was replayed on the large screen in the arena. A short left to Garcia’s exposed liver caused the paralysis.
Garcia looked stunned by the blow’s effect though he had knocked out several foes in the same manner.
“He just caught me with a good shot,” said Garcia. “No excuses. I just couldn’t get up.”
After the fight Davis and Garcia posed together for photographers.
“] would say he was the best fighter,” said Davis about Garcia. “We was going off of each other’s energy. We was actually talking, it was fun while it lasted. I enjoyed every moment of it.”
So did Garcia.
“I was honored to be in the ring with him,” said Garcia. “He’s a great fighter.”
It started slow but ended with a body shot few could see.
Other Bouts
WBA super middleweight titlist David Morrell Jr. (9-0, 8 KOs) needed less than a round to destroy Brazil’s Yamaguchi Falcao (24-2-1, 10 KOs) and forge his name as a capable contender for better opposition.
“I’m so excited. It’s a big moment for me,” said Morrell.
In a battle between southpaws Morrell proved again that a lefty with a good right hook has the advantage as he used that weapon to floor the Brazilian twice and for good at 2:22 of the first round.
It was hardly a contest.
Morrell only has a handful of pro fights but wields enough power to compete with the big names of the super middleweight division. Put his name down as marquee worthy.
Falcao was hurt almost immediately by Cuba’s Morrell who whacked away at the Brazilian fighter’s body and head. He shredded any semblance of Falcao’s defense with big shots mostly from the wide right hook. A four-punch combo capped by a right hook staggered Falcao and another than sent him to the ropes. The referee halted the assault but it would not save the Brazilian. The fight resumed and Morrell resumed to whack at Falcao with right hooks. Down he went with a thud.
Referee Celestino Ruiz immediately stopped the fight at 2:22 of the first round for a technical knockout win for Morrell.
“I want to fight the best in my division,” Morrell said looking toward David Benavidez’s direction. “Hey David (Benavidez), you’re next.”
Super middleweight Bektemir Melikuziev (12-1, 9 KOs) was able to out-box clever Gabe Rosado (26-17-1, 16 KOs) to avenge his only pro loss in a strategic battle that never opened up into the back-and-forth warfare of their first encounter.
Unlike their first fight, this time Melikuziev never exchanged recklessly as in their first match that saw Rosado knock him out with a counter right cross. This fight was like a tetras game, block by block.
Melikuziev staggered Rosado in the fifth and 10th round but was ultra careful for the counter and took the decision willingly despite the constant boos from the fans for the slow contest.
After 10 rounds all three judges scored the bout 99-91 for Melikuziev.
“This time the goal was to showcase my skills,” he said.
Arizona’s teen-aged Elijah Garcia (15-0, 12 KOs) went the distance for the first time as a pro in defeating Mexico’s rugged Kevin Salgado (15-2-1, 10 KOs) by unanimous decision after 10 rounds in a regional middleweight title fight.
It took Garcia several rounds to adjust to Salgado’s head butts and low blows while fighting inside, so he increased the tempo and took the fight outside for a brief moment in changing the pace of the fight.
It worked.
“I was standing a little too still,” said Garcia. “I had to move and box a little bit.”
Garcia took control with combinations on the outside especially with the right hook-left cross-right hook combination. Though he was deadly accurate Salgado took the punches like a human sponge.
Still, Garcia took over the fight even on the inside and used his combinations in-between Salgado’s to score big and cause Salgado to slow down. A low blow by the Mexican-based fighter in the seventh round sparked a point deduction from referee Robert Hoyle. After 10 rounds all three judges scored in favor of Garcia 95-94, 97-92 twice for the teen from Phoenix.
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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Avila Perspective, Chap. 303: Spotlights on Lightweights and More
Those lightweights.
Whether junior lights, super lights or lightweights, it’s the 130-140 divisions where most of boxing’s young stars are found now or in the past.
Think Oscar De La Hoya, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather.
Floyd Schofield (17-0, 12 KOs) a Texas product, hungers to be a star and takes on Mexico’s Rene Tellez Giron (20-3, 13 KOs) in a 12-round lightweight bout on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.
DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotion card that includes a female undisputed flyweight championship match pitting Argentina’s Gabriela Alaniz and Gabriela Fundora.
Like a young lion looking to flex, Schofield (pictured on the left) is eager to meet all the other young lions and prove they’re not equal.
“I’ve been in the room with Shakur, Tank. I want to give everyone a good fight. I feel like my preparation is getting better, I work hard, I’ve dedicated my whole life to this sport,” said Schofield naming fellow lightweights Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
Now he meets Mexico’s Tellez who has never been stopped.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” said Tellez.
Even in Las Vegas.
Verona, New York
Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a WBC junior lightweight title rematch finds Robson Conceicao (19-2-1, 9 KOs) looking to prove superior to former titlist O’Shaquie Foster (22-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y. ESPN+ will stream the Top Rank fight card.
Last July, Conceicao and Foster clashed and after 12 rounds the title changed hands from Foster to the Brazilian by split decision.
“I feel that a champion is a fighter who goes out there and doesn’t run around, who looks for the fight, who tries to win, and doesn’t just throw one or two punches and then moves away,” said Conceicao.
Foster disagrees.
“I hope he knows the name of the game is to hit and not get hit. That’s the name of the game,” said Foster.
Also on the same card is lightweight contender Raymond Muratalla (21-0, 16 KOs) who fights Mexico’s Jesus Perez Campos (25-5, 18 KOs).
Perez recently defeated former world champion Jojo Diaz last February in California.
“We’re made for challenges. I like challenges,” said Perez.
Muratalla likes challenges too.
“I think these fights are the types of fights I need to show my skills and to prove I deserve those title fights,” said Fontana’s Muratalla.
Female Undisputed Flyweight Championship
WBA, WBC and WBO flyweight titlist Gabriela “La Chucky” Alaniz (15-1, 6 KOs meets IBF titlist Gabriela Fundora (14-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday Nov. 2, at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. DAZN will stream the clash for the undisputed flyweight championship.
Argentina’s Alaniz clashed twice against former WBA, WBC champ Marlen Esparza with their first encounter ending in a dubious win for the Texas fighter. In fact, three of Esparza’s last title fights were scored controversially.
But against Alaniz, though they fought on equal terms, Esparza was given a 99-91 score by one of the judges though the world saw a much closer contest. So, they fought again, but the rematch took place in California. Two judges deemed Alaniz the winner and one Esparza for a split-decision win.
“I’m really happy to be here representing Argentina. We are ready to fight. Nothing about this fight has to do with Marlen. So, I hope she (Fundora) is ready. I am ready to prepare myself for the great fight of my life,” said Alaniz.
In the case of Fundora, the extremely tall American fighter at 5’9” in height defeated decent competition including Maria Santizo. She was awarded a match with IBF flyweight titlist Arely Mucino who opted for the tall youngster over the dangerous Kenia Enriquez of Mexico.
Bad choice for Mucino.
Fundora pummeled the champion incessantly for five rounds at the Inglewood Forum a year ago. Twice she battered her down and the fight was mercifully stopped. Fundora’s arm was raised as the new champion.
Since that win Fundora has defeated Christina Cruz and Chile’s Daniela Asenjo in defense of the IBF title. In an interesting side bit: Asenjo was ranked as a flyweight contender though she had not fought in that weight class for seven years.
Still, Fundora used her reach and power to easily handle the rugged fighter from Chile.
Immediately after the fight she clamored for a chance to become undisputed.
“It doesn’t get better than this, especially being in Las Vegas. This is the greatest opportunity that we can have,” said Fundora.
It should be exciting.
Fights to Watch
Sat. ESPN+ 2:50 p.m. Robson Conceicao (19-2-1) vs O’Shaquie Foster (22-3).
Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. Floyd Schofield (17-0) vs Rene Tellez Giron (20-3); Gabriela Alaniz (15-1) vs Gabriela Fundora (14-0).
Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy
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Bakhram Murtalaziev was the Fighter of the Month in October
As we close the book on October, let’s look back at the month’s stellar performances. Kenshiro Teraji added another exclamation point to his brilliant career with an 11th-round stoppage of Cristofer Rosales. England’s Jack Catterall, considered no more than a decent domestic-level talent for most of his career, showed that he had been underrated with a comprehensive 12-round decision over declining Regis Prograis. But the top performance, by a landslide, was delivered by Bakhram Murtalaziev who annihilated Tim Tszyu on Oct. 19 in Orlando, Florida.
Murtalaziev was undefeated (22-0, 16 KOs) and the reigning IBF junior middleweight champion, but he was the underdog and the “B” side. As champions go, and there are roughly five dozen across the 17 weight divisions, the California-based Russian ranked among the least well-known. He had won his title in Berlin with an 11th-round stoppage of an unexceptional 38-year-old German-Ecuadorian campaigner, Jack Culcay, and he would be making his first defense.
Managed by Egis Klimas who also handles Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, among others, Bakhram Murtalaziev came from a good barn in the vernacular of a horseplayer, but on paper that alone was insufficient to get him over the hump against Tim Tszyu who a few short months earlier was widely considered the best 154-pound boxer in the world.
That was before he met up with Sebastian Fundora who blemished his record, but that setback could have been written off as a fluke.
As we recall, Tszyu was scheduled to fight Keith Thurman in the initial PBC offering on Amazon Prime Video, but Thurman suffered a biceps injury in training and Fundora was bumped up from the undercard to fill the breach. With only 12 days’ notice, Tim Tszyu went from fighting a five-foot-seven fighter who fights out of an orthodox stance to fighting a southpaw who stood almost a full foot taller. The “Towering Inferno” has his limitations, but poses a special problem to anyone, let alone an opponent with little time to formulate a good game plan.
Tszyu was hampered in the Fundora fight by a gash on his hairline that hampered his vision. The injury happened in the second round when he ducked under Fundora and walked into an elbow. The gash bled copiously throughout the fight and yet the best that Fundora could do was win a split (albeit fair) decision.
To say that Tszyu failed to rebound from the Fundora misadventure would be putting it mildly. Murtalaziev steamrolled him, knocking him to the canvas four times in all before Tszyu’s corner tossed in the towel at the 1:55 mark of the third stanza. It was painful to watch. Referee Chris Young was faulted for allowing the match to continue as long as it did. Compounding Tszyu’s misery, his celebrated father, a first ballot Hall of Famer, was ringside. Kostya Tszyu hadn’t seen his oldest son fight in the flesh since Tim’s pro debut in 2016.
Although the dichotomy is imperfect, Tim Tszyu, who turns 30 on Saturday, is more of a puncher than a boxer. That may work against him so far as clawing his way back to a position of prominence. The noted boxing coach Stephen “Breadman” Edwards, a keen student of the history of boxing in the modern era, expressed this sentiment in a Q and A story for Boxing Scene. “Destructive fighters usually don’t come back to full capacity after bad KO losses,” he said, citing John Mugabi, Mike Tyson, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, and Naseem Hamed to illustrate his point. Moreover, added Edwards, “No one will ever be afraid of him again.”
But there were two stories that emerged from the Murtalaziev-Tszyu fight. Tim Tszyu crashed, but Bakhram Murtalaziev emerged from obscurity, announcing his presence (pardon the cliché) as a force to be reckoned with. As for his next assignment, the best guess is that it will come against Sebastian Fundora or Errol Spence Jr. who are expected to meet early next year. And based on Murtalaziev’s stunning performance in Orlando, it will be impossible to bet against him.
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Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later
Foreman-Moorer: 30 Years Later
By TSS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT JAMIE REBNER — In sports, middle-aged athletes are not supposed to beat opponents who are half their age and in their athletic primes. Only the greatest ones can use guile, technique, and experience to compensate for the dulling of speed, reflexes, and athleticism that have unavoidably eroded with time.
That is why George Foreman’s feat of reclaiming the heavyweight title at 45 is so impressive. It was thirty years ago this coming Tuesday, Nov 5, 1994, that Foreman scored a monumental upset in knocking out Michael Moorer to win back the title he had lost twenty years prior against Muhammad Ali in The Rumble in the Jungle. In doing so, Big George became the oldest heavyweight champion, breaking the record previously held by Jersey Joe Walcott, who had won the title at 38.
When Foreman beat Moorer, he was in the twilight of his second career, a comeback that began in 1987. George had retired in 1977 after losing to Jimmy Young and experiencing a spiritual awakening in his locker room. That led him to become a minister and devote himself to his family and congregation. During his retirement, he opened a youth center in Houston, which required much financial support, prompting him to return to the ring.
After winning 24 straight fights from 1987-1990, Foreman lost his first title shot by decision to Evander Holyfield in 1991. He rebounded from that loss with three more wins before getting a crack at the WBO title against Tommy Morrison in 1993. But his performance against Morrison was disappointing and he lost another decision. After that, Foreman was out of the ring for 17 months before he was gifted another title shot against Moorer.
Foreman got that gift because Moorer, due to his sullen demeanor and curtness with the media, was not a draw with the fans. He was also an unproven champion, having beaten Holyfield for two belts only seven months prior. So. Moorer needed a name opponent who could bring in the crowds for his first title defense. And the other top heavyweights like Oliver McCall (WBC champ), Lennox Lewis, and Riddick Bowe didn’t have close to Foreman’s drawing power. So. deserving or not, Foreman was chosen as the challenger to make a fight that would be worth the public’s attention and pockets.
Even Foreman was surprised by getting selected to fight Moorer. “I never in my wildest imagination thought I’d get a title shot again,” he told Associated Press sports columnist Tim Dahlberg. Still, George was determined to make his third time a charm.
But as motivated as George was, there was an irrefutable gap in speed between himself and the much younger champion. From the opening bell, Moorer used his superior quickness and reflexes to make Foreman look stiff and slow. And although George landed punches early on, he fired them one at a time while Moorer countered with multiple shots. But despite Moorer’s advantage in connects, his trainer Teddy Atlas advised him from the get-go not to stand in front of Foreman and make himself a stationary target for a right-hand bomb.
But Moorer failed to heed that advice as he continued to outwork Foreman in the middle rounds. Although he was winning, Moorer’s overconfidence kept him at close quarters, and he continued to circle unwisely to his left and into Foreman’s dangerous right hand. And despite absorbing many quality shots, Foreman never appeared hurt or discouraged thanks to his granite chin and unyielding resolve. He was determined to win and he was willing to walk through as many flush shots as he needed to do so.
With Moorer content to stay in range, Foreman gladly returned his firepower and he landed some telling right crosses, uppercuts, and plenty of thudding body blows during the battle. And while Moorer continued to pile up points and rounds, as long as George was marching forward and throwing shots, he had a puncher’s chance.
And with a minute to go in round ten, that punch came. After missing a three-punch combination, Foreman scored with a one-two, with the right hand landing on the forehead. He immediately repeated that combination but this time aimed the right hand lower on Moorer’s jaw. That slight adjustment caused his bulldozer right to collide perfectly with Moorer’s chin, sending the champion crashing to the canvas and sprawled onto his back. The champion couldn’t beat the count, and just like that, the fight was over, Moorer’s short-lived title run ending before it ever truly began.
With a single, shattering blow, Foreman etched his name into boxing history. Wearing the same trunks from Zaire 20 years before, he was now heavyweight champion of the world once again. It was a shocking result that defied conventional wisdom since seldom do 45-year-old boxers score knockouts over champions in their athletic primes. But Foreman reminded us that he was anything but your typical quadragenarian. He was special, and he had two distinct heavyweight championship reigns to prove it.
—
About the author:
Jamie Rebner lives in Toronto, Canada. He has been a freelance boxing writer since 2016 and his writing has appeared in The Fight City, Boxing News Online, The Ring, and Ringside Seat magazine. His Substack blog is Fight Fundamental, and he is currently writing a book about George Foreman’s comeback. He is also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow him on Twitter @J_NReb.
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