Chris Billam-Smith vs. Richard Riakporhe II & Isaac Chamberlain vs. Jack Massey - Round by Round.

CBS is the better, tougher fighter but most of the fights he's been involved in since their first fight have been wars and he's taken an awful lot of damage in them because of his porous defence. He looked well on his way to losing against Masternak prior to the later suffering the rib injury and was even more alarmingly easy to hit than usual.

Riakporhe is a lot fresher, much naturally bigger (when CBS at walk around weight was brought into the ring for one of Riakporhe's post-fight interviews a while back the size difference was very noticeable). Not saying CBS is a small CW but rather that Riakporhe is a massive one.

Riakporhe has improved but one of the new 'skills' I noticed he has acquired is keeping his opponent at arm's length (literally) by doing that constant pawing with the jab thing which isn't even actually a jab or a legit skill but rather a sneaky way of stiff-arming. It's one of those American school of slickness 'skills' and I'm noticing it's being utilized more and more with fighters from that school these days and sadly the disease is starting to spread outside of the US now and infect non American fighters.

It's a very effective strategy but ultimately it's a cowardly and unmanly one.

A perfect example of it most recently is The Dosser vs Big Bang. The former literally did it almost every second of the fight and it made it difficult for Big Bang to close the distance and land with his bombs. The fight would've been over in round 1 had The Dosser not been allowed to do it.

I had CBS winning the first fight as the KD was completely bogus and Riakporhe should've had points deducted for excessive holding. Massey clearly beat Riakporhe too and that was despite Riakporhe have yet another completely bogus KD scored in his favour where no punch came close to landing. And Riakporhe's holding in that fight was disgraceful. There's zero argument for Riakporhe winning that fight even with the bogus KD and even without having multiple point deductions which he clearly should have.

FTR, I don't dislike Riakporhe as a person at all but he's Sky's golden boy and he should have 2 Ls on his ledger.

That being said, I've had a sneaky feeling he might stop CBS for a while now. CBS can punch himself and I think he has a much better chin than Riakporhe but I also think Riakporhe is right when he says it could be starting to crack now due to all the wars CBS has ben involved in. IIRC 6 or 7 of his last 8 fights have been wars and it's hard to shake how alarmingly easy to hit he was in his last fight. If he's tightened up his defence for this one he can stop Riakporhe but we just don't know until we see it and as tough as he is he seems more vulnerable now

And as good a trainer as Shane McGuigan is he took a bad loss with Richards vs Hutchinson last time out and he's long overdue a series of losses because everything has been going too well for him for a long time. I'm picking CBS but you can only fight with your face for so long before it takes a toll.