Cruiserweight and Heavyweight thread.

Looks like Romanov is coming for Wilder!

 

When I checked the other day the fight was gone.

 

Looks like Cassius Chaney has a new opponent for his August 20th fight at the Mohegan Sun Casino, in Connecticut, USA.

His new opponent is Matt McKinney (8-5-3) - who goes by "El Matador", despite the total absence of any latin blood. So, in effect, they are replacing the 40 year-old Shawn Miller with a 41 year-old opponent. While, unlike Miller, the 6' 4" McKinney can lay claim to having shared the ring with meaningful opponents in the last 12 months - those fights against Iago Kiladze and Joe Goodall ended in stoppage losses in two and one rounds, repsecitvely.

Even accounting for Chaney's tendency to keep his opponents around for longer than he should, it's likely that Miller seems destined for the same fate here, too.

 

Gadji Navruzov and Ivan Smirnov drew over 4 rounds last night on Hardcore boxing show.

Kazakh Ali Baloev decisioned Bosnian Jemal Bosnyak over 6 rounds on the same show.

 

Vagab Vagabov stopped Pavel Shulskiy in 2nd round after Shulskiy was unable to continue due to a double fracture to the jaw.

Note this is a hybrid fight, boxing rules in an MMA cage and in MMA gloves.

 

Badou Jack weighed in at 199.1 lbs for his cruiserweight fight against Richard Richard Rivera (194.9 lbs) on the Usyk v. Joshua 2 undercard tomorrow night.

Jack, who will be turning 39 in just two months time is, of course, held the WBC SMW title from 2013-2015 and came close to wining the WBC LHW strap in 2018. He moved to the CW division in late 2020, but has not faced an elite opponent since that move.

His opponent, 31 year-old Richard Rivera is not a name that many boxing fans will recognize, but I can provide some details.

Rivera only turned pro in 2017. For the first couple years of his career, he showed quite good progress. This culminated in a busy autumn 2019 stretch where we took on journeymen Brian Howard, Israel Duffus, and Joe Jones in a four month span and earned wide UD wins in all three bouts. To the suprise of many, he then followed up this impressive stretch with several fights against very poor opposition and - even more suprisiingly - moved down to LHW in the summer of 2021.

So what happened?

It's difficult to say for certain - but PED rumors started swirling around Richard Rivera in early 2019 when he tested positive for a banned substance after a fight. The resulting suspension was later overturned, but the rumors haver persisted and it seems that other CW fighters were unwilling to face Rivera due to concerns about PED use. That probably explains his eventual move to LHW.

I did see the Rivera v. Jones fight in 2019. Jones laid a big shot on Rivera early that seemed to hurt him for a few seconds in the first minute of the fight. Afterwards, though, it was all Rivera. Despite hitting Jones with countless flush shots, however, he was unable to stop Jones - a fighter who has been stopped several times by other opponents. So I can't regard Rivera as a big puncher.

I'm leaning towards picking Jack in this fight - but it's pretty difficult for me to make a prediction with great confidence. Jack has an enormous edge in experience in big fights. And it seems as if he still has his punching power (though his most recent opponents are not the best test of that). Still, the man is almost 39 years-old and I can vouch for Rivera appearing to have a very good gas tank (whether or not there are some illegal after-market fuel additives in his tank is a good question)..

I think Jack has a good possibility of ending this fight in the early rounds, but - if he is unable to do so - could face a difficult time winning this one on the cards, since this will be a 12 round fight against a younger opponent.

 

Badou Jack prevailed over Richard Rivera by SD (scores: 96-94 Jack, 96-94 Jack, 96-94 Rivera) in their 10-round CW contest on the Usyk v. Joshua undercared.

Some are saying Rivera was robbed, but I disagree.

Rivera was the clear winner of the first four rounds, but I felt Jack landed the heavier, cleaner shots thereafter. While Rivera did outwork him in spots in the 2nd half of the fight - much of that work was not of very high quality. Maybe you could make a case for Rivera pinching the final round - in which case I would be OK with a draw.

The bout was marred by a ridiculous screwup in the 8th round which saw the round extended by nearly a full minute after the timekeeper appeared to lose track of the time elapsed. This worked to Jack's great benefit as he had stunned Rivera with a heavy shot right before the round should have ended and proceeded to unload more punishment on Rivera in the seconds that followed. Rivera did manage to hang on.

That incident, IMO, should have been grounds for declaring the fight a "No Content" with the full purses paid out.

The fight was also notable for the swarms of flies that descended on both fighters in the middle rounds. To the relief of many, no locuts or frogs were seen on the card's latter fights.

As I said about Rivera - a fun guy to watch with a terrific motor, but just not enough of a puncher to reach the top of the division.

 

Filip Hrgovic defeated Zhang Zhilei by UD - with scores of 114-113, 115-112, and 115-112. In doing so, he secures the IBF mandatory challenger position

To the suprise of many, the fight went the whole distance. Zhang reminded everybody of just how dangerous a figthter he is in the early rounds by dropping Hrogovic in the 1st frame. Hrgovic was consistently outlanding Zhang, but Zhang took the majority of the rounds in the first half of the fight by landing very heavy shots when he needed them. Zhang's breathing began to be labored from the 5th round onward, though, and the fight progressively swung in favor of Hrgovic. Zhang had a brief second wind in the 9th round and clearly hurt Hrgovic in that frame. But the remaining rounds were clearly in Hrgovic's favor and the final frame saw Hrgovic letting his hands go for much of it while Zhang appeared both dead-armed and drained and could offer up nothing much in return.

Utlimately, a 114-113 score in Hrgovic's favor seemed about right to me.

As an aside, surely Zhang must have the biggest heart in all of boxing right now:

Exhibit A:

Zhang's kidneys are shutting down, he's going into shock, and Jerry Forrest is hammering him shots to the midesection...but he somehow stays on his feet

Exhibit B:

He's completely exhausted and dead-armed and Hrgovic (who hits harder than Forrest does) is unloading shot after shot to his head...but he somehow stays on his feet.

A lot of people are going to be suggesting that Zhang's lack of activity in the 12th round indicated he gave up...but they aren't realizing that Zhang had finished emptying his clip by the end of the 9th round and was little more than a target for Filip thereafter.

 

Lenier Pero demolished Joel Caudle with a huge right hook at 2:29 of the 1st round of their fight.

Caudle hit the canvas face-first and the ref immediately waved off the fight.

While I think it's ridiculous that Pero was somehow holding the #9 WBA ranking heading into this fight - it seems likely he will become a force in the division in the next few years should his relative lack of size (6' 3 1/2" is the new 5' 11") not hinder him too much.

 

I'm interested if Dainier Pero is likely to turn pro any time soon?

https://boxrec.com/en/box-am/863085

 

Came across this image some time back and just found a copy of it online which I can link to:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FaX2VvVWAAMyt0h.jpg

 

This content is protected

 

Hell, no one is going to drop a line about Usyk beating Joshua again? I mean, I know we all know, but this thread is for posterity!

 

Well, for the sake of tying up loose ends...

Oleksandr Usyk successfully defended his WBA, IBF and WBO belts against Anthony Joshua in their rematch on August 20th in Saudi Arabia.

It was a bout very much like the first. While Joshua proved capable of landing the heavier blows, he was simply outworked by the speedy & slick Usyk. While Joshua seemed a shade better prepared for his opponent's tactics in this fight, he once again couldn't prevent the Ukranian from taking control of the second half of the fight. The end result was a split decision victory for Usyk by way of 113–115, 115–113, 116–112 scores - with the last of these seeming the most appropriate to this author.

A very disappointed Joshua then proceeded to - as the British say - spit the dummy in a ringside rant that culminated in his tossing two of the belts outside the ring. This would-be unsatisfactory end to the evening was offset by Tyson Fury's near-immediate reaction to the bout, indicating that he isn't retired after all, and that he will be fighting Usyk in a unification bout. While hardly surprising, the news is most welcome.

 

Undefeated USA prospect Jeremiah Milton (5-0-0, 4KOs) was originally scheduled to fight fellow-unbeaten USA prospect Quintin Sumpter on the now-cancelled August 27th Paul v. Rahman Jr card.

Happily for the 28 year-old Milton, he will be back in action on August 27th after all, when he will face off against Nick Jones (9-4-0) in a 6 round bout included on the Pedraza v. Commey undercard.

The 6 foot 3, 35 year-old Jones has a reputation as a basic, come-forward type of fighter who can be relied upon to show up to fights in good shape. He often gets the call to fight unbeaten prospects and, in fact, all four of his defeats have come by stoppage losses to such fighters inside of four rounds. So, if nothing else, the clearly-limited Jones gives the up-and-coming Milton an obvious goal to shoot for and I believe he will attain it within three rounds.