This is the main event of ShoBox this coming Friday, July 20th. Sadly, it might be the second most high profile bout this weekend behind Broner vs. Escobedo on HBO WCB on Saturday night. A few of my thoughts leading up: Miguel Acosta vs. Richard Abril highlights: [yt]FO98KHu-S6g[/yt] Miguel Acosta vs. Richard Abril RBR thread: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=352579 Hovhannisyan vs. Cruz video: [yt]rJGymhudeSA[/yt] [yt]BKKRsL7ofM4[/yt] Hovhannisyan vs. Cruz RBR thread: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/...=333630&page=2
Rooting for the return of the old Acosta (atleast close), hoping it was just a really off night with Abril, who managed to make Rios look pretty bad aswell.
There's only so much credit you can give Abril for how bad Acosta looked, though. A lot of it had nothing to do with Abril necessarily. Miguel was falling down almost every time they clinched (which was often). What you see in that minute of HL there is only the tip of the iceberg. If the whole match ever turns up on Youtube, DM, Soso or any of those places it will come as a shock to those who missed it live and who've only had the accounts of us few eyewitnesses to go by. We really were not exaggerating; Acosta looked F-level that night and many commissions would probably refuse to grant him a license based on the footage.
...but yeah, hopefully it's a fair contest and not am able-bodied man pounding on a cripple... If the former champ from Venezuela is even twice as good as he was then (still only 10% of what he was at his peak) he could hang tough with the limited if steady little Armenian.
Yeah Acosta looked.awful against Abril, I'd be scared if he was in the ring again with Rios. Going Art to win by virtue of Acosta being totally done.
Acosta can box well but seems to fade. Plus his chin is garbage, IMO. I'd pick any decent prospect with power over him at this point. Hov KO10