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Results and Recaps from Madison Square Garden where Keyshawn Davis KO’d Berinchyk

Top Rank was at the Theater at Madison Square Garden tonight. The main event of the 9-bout card was a battle between Olympic silver medalists Keyshawn Davis and Denys Berinchyk. A 36-year-old Ukrainian, Berinchyk was making the first defense of the WBO world lightweight title he won with an upset of Emanuel Navarrete.
Berinchyk, who turned pro at age 27, was undefeated heading in (19-0, 9 KOs), but Norfolk’s Davis, a stablemate of Terence Crawford, is big for the weight and was the younger man by 11 years and the oddsmakers anticipated that the title would change hands.
Berinchyk has an awkward style which lends itself to messy fights and this match was headed in that direction before Davis took charge in the third frame. He put the Ukrainian on the deck with a left to the body and finished the job in the next round with a wicked punch to the liver that sent Berincjyk to his knees, wincing in pain.
He wasn’t able to beat the count and Keyshawn Davis (13-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC) emerged the new champion. The official time was 1:45 of round four.
Co-Feature
Xander Zayas, ranked #1 at junior middleweight by the WBO, scored a ninth-round stoppage of hard-trying but out-classed Slawa Spomer (20-1). During the fight, Zayas (21-0, 13 KOs) worked the body effectively. Several of those punches strayed south of the border, but it was a legitimate body punch that spelled the end for Germany’s Spomer who was fighting for the first time with Roy Jones Jr in his corner. That punch, a left to the body, was followed by a barrage that led referee Charlie Fitch to step in and stop it. The official time was 2:01 of round nine.
Zayas, fighting for the seventh time at Madison Square Garden, moved one step closer to a title fight.
The first of three fights on the main ESPN platform was a well-matched middleweight contest between Vito Mielnicki Jr and Connor Coyle. In his debut at 160, Mielnicki, the pride of Roseland, New Jersey, seemingly did enough to edge it, but only one of the judges agreed (96-94) whereas the other two had it 95-95, producing a draw. The pro Mielnicki crowd booed the decision.
After the entertaining fourth round, Mielnicki was bleeding from his mouth and Coyle from a cut on the side of his left eye that would eventually bleed more profusely.
The 22-year-old Mielnicki, the younger man by 12 years, failed to win his 13th straight. He’s now 20-1-1. The 34-year-old Coyle, from Pinellas Park, Florida by way of Derby, Northern Ireland, remains undefeated at 21-0-1 and will presumably retain his lofty ranking (#3) in the World Boxing Association.
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The final fight of the ESPN+ livestream showcased the 19-year-old son of Puerto Rican crowd-pleaser Juan Manuel “Juanma” Lopez, a former two-division world title-holder. “Juanmita” Lopez De Jesus did his dad proud, needing only 59 seconds to put away Bryan Santiago in a super flyweight contest slated for four rounds.
A second-generation Olympian, “Juanmita,” was stepping down in class after coming up short in his last start against two-time gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov in the 2024 Paris Games. He ended the contest with a short left hook that put Santiago (1-2-1) down hard, flat on his back.
Abdullah Mason, a 20-year-old, baby-faced assassin from Cleveland continued his rapid ascent up the lightweight ranks with a fourth-round blowout of Stockton, California’s Manuel Jaimes. It was the fifteenth win inside the distance in 17 starts for the undefeated Mason who has lightning-quick hands and appears destined for great things.
Jaimes (16-3-1) had lasted 10 rounds with perennial title challenger Rolly Romero in his last outing and hadn’t previously been stopped. He was on the canvas four times before referee David Fields waived it off at the 1:55 mark of round four.
Rising welterweight contender Rohan Polanco who represented the Dominican Republic in the Tokyo Olympiad, advanced to 15-0 (10 KOs) with a second-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Jean Carlos Torres (22-2). The official time was 1:48 of round two.
Polanco, who trains in Boston, decked Torres with a left-right combination in the opening frame and dropped him again in round two with a left hook. Torres was on his feet but on spaghetti legs when referee Eddie Claudio stepped in and stopped it.
Lanky welterweight Keon Davis, the youngest of the three fighting Davis brothers, improved to 2-0 with a second-round stoppage of Kansas City, Missouri plumber Ira Johnson (3-3). Davis had Johnson on the canvas twice before the bout was finished with Johnson showing no inclination to get up after the second knockdown.
Jared Anderson was expected to win as he pleased against unheralded Marios Kollias, but was extended the full 10-round distance by the Greek invader before prevailing on scores of 98-92 and 99-91 twice.
Despite the wide scorecards, Anderson looked very ordinary in a fight that was fought at a glacial pace. Coming off a humbling defeat to Martin Bakole who roughed-him-up and stopped him, the “Real Big Baby” needed a good showing to restore some of his lost luster but failed to deliver while advancing his record to 18-1 (15).
The only drama was whether Kollias (12-4-1) would moon the crowd on a St. Valentine’s Day as his shorts kept slipping down below the wide strap of his rubber groin protector. They never did fall completely down thanks to referee Fields who repeatedly stopped the action to pull them up.
In the lid-lifter, Chicago construction worker Juan Carlos Guerra (6-1-1) scored a split decision over Nico Ali Walsh (11-2-1). Two judges favored Guerra by 58-56 scores with the dissenter favoring Ali Walsh by the same margin.
Guerra was the aggressor and Ali Walsh, whose career has stalled, didn’t have enough steam in his jab to deter him.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sangrinov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.
No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.
“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.
Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.
Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.
In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.
That was a bad sign for Stanionis.
Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.
In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.
It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.
Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.
After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.
Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.
“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.
Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.
Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.
“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.
“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”
Other Bouts
Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.
The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.
“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.
Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.
Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.
Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.
In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.
“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”
In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.
“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”
After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.
Photo credit: Matchroom
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Boxing Notes and Nuggets from Thomas Hauser

Jack Dillon’s name doesn’t resonate with boxing fans today. But he was important in his time.
Ernest Coulter Price was born in 1891 and turned pro at age seventeen. According to legend, when asked his name by the referee before his first fight, he answered “Sidney Dillon” (the name of a racehorse in a stable where he’d worked). The referee misunderstood him, announced him as “Jack Dillon,” and Jack Dillon was his fighting name from then on.
Dillon stood a shade over 5 feet 7 inches tall. He earned renown as a small light-heavyweight, was known as “Jack the Giant Killer,” and compiled a 94-9-16 (65 KOs, 2 KOs by) ring record not counting an estimated 125 “newspaper decisions.” He defeated Battling Levinsky in 1914 to claim the world 175-pound championship and lost the title to Levinsky two years later. He fought Levinsky ten times, winning six with two losses and two draws.
Dillon was always willing to go in tough. But he fought too long, got hit too often, and drank too much. He died at age 51 in a state psychiatric hospital in Florida.
Jack Dillon by Mark Allen Baker (McFarland & Company) tracks Dillon’s life and ring career from beginning to end. To his credit, Baker has done an enormous amount of research. But his writing style is heavy. He falls short of recreating a long-ago era when boxing captivated America. The character portraits are one-dimensional. And the book reads as though, after studying hundreds if not thousands of newspaper clippings, Baker decided to insert every bit of information he found. There are descriptions of fight after fight after fight after fight after fight after fight. After a while, most of the fights no longer seem to matter.
And when Baker tries to liven things up, he lapses into hyperbole (e.g. writing of Dillon, “From the opening gong, it was clear to every opponent, regardless of size or skill, that they were destined for destruction . . . When he looked up [toward the heavyweight division], there wasn’t a heavyweight alive who didn’t fear for his life.”)
I also had the feeling that, to prove the case for Dillon’s greatness, Baker massages the facts a bit. For example, lobbying for the idea that Dillon was deserving of a shot at heavyweight champion Jess Willard, Baker argues that several fighters had beaten much larger men to claim the heavyweight crown. He then cites James Corbett’s victory over John L. Sullivan (a supposed 35-pound weight differential), Bob Fitzsimmons’s triumph over Corbett (26 pounds), and Tommy Burns over Marvin Hart (45 pounds).
The problem is, those numbers are suspect. Adam Pollack (a leading authority on boxing’s early gloved champions) says that there were no official weigh-ins for heavyweight fights way back when. Weights were sometimes announced by a fighter’s camp in the lead-in to a fight or otherwise shared with the public. But the numbers were often inaccurate.
Both The Ring Record Book and Pollack’s research point to far smaller weight differentials than the numbers put forth by Baker. That’s important because it goes to the issue of scholarship. And yes; when Jack Dempsey brutalized Jess Willard, he was outweighed by at least fifty pounds. But Jack Dillon was no Jack Dempsey.
Still, even with its flaws, Jack Dillon performs a service in that it brings attention to a forgotten fighter and puts a great deal of information at the fingertips of readers who want to know more about “Jack the Giant Killer.”
* **
Jody Heaps spent three decades as a senior creative director and executive producer for boxing-related projects at Showtime. In recent years, he has redirected his attention to projects of his own. His two most recent efforts are worthy of mention.
One Night in the Many Deaths of Sonny Liston is a 40-minute play that imagines the last night of Liston’s life in December 1970 and his death at the hands of a “statuesque, provocatively-dressed, Las Vegas showgirl in her late-twenties” who visits his home unannounced with a “gift” from Sonny’s mob associates – a small packet of adulterated heroin that by design will kill him.
The writing flows exceptionally well. The play humanizes Liston in a credible way. And the tension builds nicely. But the narrative strains credibility with the plot twist that Liston accepts his death as inevitable and shoots up knowing that the heroin will kill him.
More recently, Heaps has written, directed, and co-produced a ten-minute play titled A Mop of Angels that can be seen in its entirety on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hImmcG2pivM
Rich O’Brien is wonderful in the role of Spencer Olrich (an aging actor who has been replaced as the star of a successful action-movie franchise) and is now reading a play for minimal pay in a ninety-nine-seat black box theater in the middle of nowhere.
Or is that really who Olrich is?
Two themes – aging and the magic of theatre – are intertwined throughout the narrative. Olrich’s thoughts include:
* “Old age is the most surprising event in a man’s life. And the cruelest. I thought that getting old would take a whole lot longer than it did. And the worst part, you never see it coming until it’s too late.”
* “Nobody knows what happens after we exit this mortal coil. And nobody’s in any hurry to find out. But that fear of the unknown; that’s not the scariest part. You know what is? Being forgotten. You may die when your heart stops beating. But you cease to exist when nobody remembers your name.”
* “This school board contends that theater is a luxury. And you’re right. Theater doesn’t stop wars or end famines or cure deadly diseases. Yet a life without theater would be no life at all. For theater is where we celebrate the joy of our humanity and mourn the pain of our existence; where we pretend to be others only to discover ourselves. To you school board members in your suits and your ties, theater may be a luxury. But for those of us who dream, theater is no more of a luxury than wings are to an angel.”
Theatrical writing is an often-thankless endeavor. But Heaps loves doing it and says, “I’ve gotten better as I keep plugging away at it. At least, I hope I have.”
Does Jody miss boxing?
“Not at all,” he answers. “I always had mixed feelings about boxing. I still enjoy conversations about it from time to time. But do I follow it? No.”
* **
If you’ve been to one final pre-fight press conference, you’ve been to all of them. That’s a slight exaggeration. But the comments do tend to be predictable. Herewith, an example of what you’ll hear from the promoter and main event fighters.
The promoter will speak longer than all of the fighters on the card combined. His opening remarks will be along the lines of:
“I’d like to thank [name of site] for hosting this great event. There’s a saying in boxing that you haven’t fought until you’ve fought at [repeat name of site]. I’d also like to give a shout out to [names of sponsors]. And most importantly, thank you to [insert name of entity or individual funding the fight card]. We have a massive stacked event on tap. This might be the best fight card in the history of [repeat name of site]. [Name of main event A-side fighter] is the fastest-rising star in boxing today. But he’ll be facing a huge challenge when he looks across the ring on [insert date] and sees [name of B-side opponent] standing across from him.”
Toward the end of the proceedings after almost everyone in attendance has lost interest, the B-side fighter in the main event will speak:
“What’s up, everybody. I’d like to thank [name of promoter], [name of network],[my whole team], and God. I had a great training camp. Fighting [name of opponent] at [name of site] is an opportunity I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I’ve been through some things that wasn’t all my fault. But this is a dream come true. It means everything to me. From the time I was a little boy, I dreamed of seeing my face on posters. Not in the post office like my uncle was, but for a fight like this. I’m in the best career of my shape. Or whatever. You know what I mean. I’m looking forward to putting on a show and winning this fight for my fans. [Name of opponent] is a good fighter. I take my hat off to him. But I’m going to shock the world on Saturday night.”
And last, a word from the main event A-side fighter:
“I got nothing to say today. I’m tired of being disrespected by [names of offending entities]. I don’t listen to what people say about me. But what they say about me really pisses me off. You can all suck my [body part of choice].”
Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1
In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
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