Gary O'Sullivan vs. Berlin Vinicio Abreu Javier

Cinco de Mayo Eve @ StubHub, main event on ESPN2.

Abreu is a 14-1 (11) welterweight standing 5'8". He actually has fought thrice at middleweight and has a 100% KO rate in the division...albeit versus opposition with a combined 5-90 record. His only defeat to date is a TKO at the hands of Sammy Vasquez, who is a pretty good fighter...but a welterweight nonetheless, and not as hard a puncher at welter p4p as Spike at MW.

 

It was actually extraordinarily thoughtful of Spike, taking on an even smaller opponent than is Golovkin, his would-be dance partner for the weekend, to alleviate some of the heat thrown GGG's way.

 

Have you seen much of Abreu? Is he any good?

 

• Location: Sands Bethlehem Event Center, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
• Referee: Steve Smoger

• In a battle of unbeatens on the undercard of Iron Mike Tyson's boxing card, former U.S. Army and Armed Forces amateur champion Samuel Vasquez came off the canvas in the second round to stop Abreu in a toe-to-toe comeback thriller. However, it appeared Abreu suffered a broken nose near the end of round three. He came out for round four, but it was apparent he had not recovered, as Vazquez quickly cut off the ring and finished Abreu with a flurry on the ropes, prompting the stoppage by referee Steve Smoger. Time: 0:23 of round 4. The game Abreu, with seven bouts experience, appeared to be not quite ready yet for Vazquez, with 12 bouts experience, though it it was a great center of the ring slugfest while it lasted. Abreu strategically wanted to slug it out with Vazquez, as he had power, but the bout didn't last.

...interesting. But again, would be a lot more relevant if Spike were a welterweight.

 

So while the result on paper against Vasquez belies a closer fight that gives a more favorable impression of Abreu, the opposite is true of the result on paper against David Peralta, over whom Abreu scored a controversial SD upset in December 2016 (just a few months after Peralta in turn upset Robert Guerrero via SD).

Hard to get a bead on this guy's quality (or find any footage)...

 

Found the last round of the Peralta fight.
(Abreu in the black trunks)

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I mean, leaving aside the reasons all the agenda-driven faction monkeys have to care (for Canelo fans, a preview of his September opponent; for Golovkin fans a look at what he came very close to facing next Saturday) - I for one tend generally to care when there's any live televised boxing on - regardless of the skill level or even the superficial impression of parity in matchmaking. Upsets in apparent mismatches do happen, as we saw the other night with Chia Santana installed as +1100 underdog and bottom-seeded in the WBC Invitational tourney yet beating Félix Díaz anyway.

I'm not sure Abreu upsetting Spike would be that much greater an upset than, say, V-Mart upsetting GGG the night after. There's more of a size deficit and obviously V-Mart is of much greater pedigree than Abreu, but then again neither is Spike on the same perceived untouchable elite tier of a GGG.

 

I will say the ESPN2 co-main event is probably a little more interesting. Jayson Vélez has an excellent chance of bringing the Ryan Garcia hype wagon crashing to a halt.