Golden Boy Promotions: Raúl Curiel García vs. Courtney Pennington RBR

Yeah, maybe just a case of reading too much hype about him ahead of this, but...going over like a wet fart in church.

In fairness, it can't be very easy to look good versus an unwilling savvy vet in Pennington.

 

Round 9

Pennington is getting battered downstairs, fleeing for the sanctuary of the ropes and sitting on the middle one but Curiel there in a flash, throwing punches in bunches. Pennington scrambles. Curiel halts when Pennington shows a jab, but soon Pennington reverts to spoiling. Curiel is covering up, elbows tucked into his stomach, waiting for Pennington to come in with something, and then rips some body shots when Pennington goes for a cheeky jab. Pennington slips a slow and telegraphed Curiel 1-2 at the bell.

10-9 Curiel

88-83 Curiel

 

Round 10

Pennington is jabbing his way in, tossing a high right hand and then stepping through with a body hook - all just a pretense for a clinch. He repeats this pattern several times. Curiel wrestles his way free and loads up on catapult right hands, belting a tiring Pennington with a couple of grazing ones. Curiel warned for a low blow in the pocket. Pennington is jabbing into the wrists and then leaning away, twisting his body around. Jabs by Pennington blocked, hook by Curiel rolled off the upper thigh. Virtually no clean effective punching on legal scoring areas either way. Fifteen seconds left. Curiel with a jab and chopping right, connecting but with little steam on it. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL ****! The referee stops the contest with exactly ten seconds remaining for absolutely no reason! Pennington had just gotten hit with a couple of shots, but they were NOT hurtful.

TKO10!

 

On the one hand it kind of serves Pennington right to lose by chintzy stoppage after being such a negative ***** all night, but goddamn. Ref had zero reasonable grounds to do that right then.

 

El Cugar might honestly be the worst NABF welterweight champion (this was his 3rd defense) I've seen.

Past holders include Ray Leonard, Don Curry, Marlon Starling, Yory Boy Campas, Oba Carr, Vernon Forrest, Golden Johnson, Jesus Soto Karass, Andre Berto, Canelo, Paulie Malignaggi, Shawn Porter, Egidijus Kavaliauskas, and Blair Cobbs.

 

This content is protected