Cardiff Fights Saturday – Flanagan Stops Cruz

Cardiff Fights Saturday – Saturday night in Wales saw Frank Warren and his Queeensbury Promotions at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff with a 10-fight card headlined by WBO World lightweight champion Terry Flanagan’s title defense against Orlando Cruz.

Cruz was making a bid to become the first openly gay boxing world champion and that fact gave the fight an augmented spotlight. When the bell rang, both men were all business. Flanagan seemed to have difficulty finding his groove in the early going, but he was the bigger, stronger fighter and by the middle rounds he was dominating. Cruz gets points for being game, but that doesn’t win fights. By round eight, Flanagan had taken all the steam out of Cruz, who went down twice. The ref stopped it as Cruz looked reluctant to go on. Flanagan successfully defended his WBO world belt for a fourth time.

Flanagan’s name has come up as a potential future opponent for WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko, who also fights tonight. The win for Flanagan makes that fight one step closer to happening.

The card was scheduled to be headlined by WBO 160-pound world titlist Billy Joe Saunders’ first title defense against Artur Akavov (16-1). That match was pushed back one week when Akavov could not complete the licensing process in time for this Saturday’s fight. Nevertheless, Warren elected to go on with the show.

Cardiff Fights Saturday

The complete results are listed below.

135 LBS 12 RDS: Terry Flanagan def Orlando Cruz by TKO RD 8.
160 LBS 12 RDS: Tommy Langford def Sam Sheedy via SD (116-114,117-113,113-115)
135 LBS 10 RDS: Craig Evans def Thomas Stalker via MD (96-95,98-92,95-95)
154 LBS 10 RDS: Liam Williams def Gabor Gorbics by TKO in RD 8 @1:30.
168 LBS 8 RDS: Alex Hughes def Harry Matthews on PTS (80-73).
135 LBS 8 RDS: Kid Galahad def Reynaldo Mora by TKO in RD 3.
Heavy 6 RDS: Nathan Gorman def Igor Mihaljevic via RTD after 3 RDS.
115 LBS 6 RDS: Jay Harris def Phil Smith via TKO in RD 4.
154 LBS 6 RDS: Reuben Arrowsmith def Ivica Gogosevic on PTS (40-36).
135 LBS 4 RDS: Henry Janes def Jason Sillett on PTS (40-35).

Cardiff Fights Saturday / Check out boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel.