Golden Boy Fight Night on FacebookWatch: Jorge Luis Linares Palencia vs. Abner Cotto Román RBR

Yep, just saw the graphic.

Jo-Jo Diaz also has it scored 19-19 after two, giving Duarte the second and Gutiérrez the first, same as me.

 

Round 3

Gutiérrez is stepping left, doubling up on the jab, taking another step and trying a reach-in combo before seesawing outside. Duarte is taking all of Gutiérrez's attacks on his radius, then following after him with overhand rights, carefully seeking out the face as he plants his full weight on his lead foot and tilts inward on his opponent. As they close distance the body shots come flying in from Duarte, until Gutiérrez either grabs or scoots out with a slew of jabs as cover fire.

10-9 Duarte, close

29-28 Duarte

 

Jo-Jo has it 29-28 Duarte.

 

Round 4

Gutiérrez is shoving back at Duarte with his jab, trying to buy some room to circle and box. Duarte keeps pressuring. Gutiérrez is warned for a head clash, didn't look intentional, was driving through with a jab through Duarte's guard and started turning his forearm horizontally to wedge Duarte's gloves apart while leaning forward to presumably follow up with a right cross (pulled when their skulls bumped accidentally). They're both hurt about equally, it looks. The ref mulls it over and then deducts a point from Gutiérrez. Sort of shady. The crowd hates it, and so does Jo-Jo Diaz...and so do I, honestly. Really bizarre, indefensible call. Gutiérrez is understandably frustrated - and in his lackluster response when time in gets called he is a sitting duck as Duarte jumps on him, tearing in with hooks, rocking Gutiérrez around until the bell!

10-8 Duarte

39-36 Duarte

 

Gutiérrez's corner pulls him.

RTD4!!

 

Really confused what happened there. Commentators saying that Gutiérrez's corner men were pressing on his midsection while he sat on his stool, before they motioned to have the referee wave off the start of the fifth?

Anyway, let's take care not to let the fact that Duarte was indeed coming on strong (and likely to stop Gutiérrez legitimately soon anyway) or that Gutiérrez was shellshocked after the butt and the beating that followed, or the weird injury and retirement - any of that - diminish what a terrible call Ray Corona just made. Like, this needs to go on his permanent record. I can't remember, is he usually a terrible ref?

 

Rocsi Diaz interviewing Duarte now.

She asks him a question in English, he answers in Spanish, and she then responds to him conversationally in Spanish (to which he then replies in Spanish) - apparently forgetting that she's working on an English language broadcast right now.

edit: to her credit, she did have that a-ha moment of self-awareness moments later and made light of the situation, looking around wondering if they were going to send in a translator for her and saying that she got lost in the blur of Spanglish.

 

God damn, Abner takes after his famous cousin, has a DIME PIECE on his arm. Is that his wife or gf?

 

Travell Mazion vs. Alan Zavala, 8 rounds @ middleweight (originally contracted for welter but Zavala came in 156 and change)

 

Jonathan Coachman just said "people are calling him (Travell Mazion) the new Tommy Hearns" - look, I know you came from wrasslin' and really DKSAB, so I'll let it slide this once, but that isn't the sort of hyperbole you can just casually throw around in these parts.

Mazion better look DAMN impressive now that you've said that.

 

That said, missing weight so badly you miss the limit of the division above is a major peeve of mine, so WAR NEW HITMAN!

 

Round 1

Mazion is ripping into Zavala with long lead left hooks pounding the gut and waistband (Zavala's is pulled way too high, an inch over his navel) and lashing him with long, crisp, hard right hands up top. Mazion not really showing much finesse as of yet (nor is he needing to) but from watching the shots travel long distance lickety split and cause these loud smacks (and seeing Zavala's reaction) the speed and power are for REAL. Mazion keeps working him over, and Zavala is flagging, going from cautiously jabbing his way in an outward spiral to now desperately falling in to gran a hold of Mazion, instead getting hit with even more upper-hooks on the muffin top. BIG right hands up top by Mazion as Zavala flees outside. Combination by Mazion, digging in viciously from afar, getting full snap and extension, jab to face, uppercut on the chest, shakes off a clinch attempt when Zavala snatches at his wrist, loops a right into one side of the face and CRACKS a long whip of a left hook into the other - and Zavala is down and out!

KO1!!!!!!

 

Mazion beat 17-1 Al Haymon prospect Daquan Arnett in his last fight, on the DDLH vs. Salgado undercard.

Coming along nicely, that was a hell of a performance. That said, we need to slow our roll with the direct ATG comparisons for relatively untested 14-0 dudes.

 

Mazion's a nice guy, he ran over to Zavala to make sure he was okay as he was getting up (but did so in an unobtrusive way, not getting in his face).

He also gave the usual lip service to God, shouting out the man upstairs for making it all happen, but he was classy enough to keep that part very brief and businesslike.

Okay, I officially like this kid.