Tison Dwayne Cave vs. Eduardo Valencia RBR

WBC open scoring announced. Cave up 40-36 all-around.

 

Round 5

Valencia puts some paintbrush right jabs down across Cave's face, backing him into the ropes. Valencia ignores the right upper-hooks into his ribs and clobbering lefts windmilled down into his head by Cave on the backfoot. Valencia having some real success just persistently driving into Cave, placing his right foot between Cave's and letting his hands go. Valencia connects on a few power shots across the head and Cave is sent into a panicked dance in reverse, but survives.

10-9 Valencia

49-46 Cave

 

With that one flourish, Eddy made this worth tuning into, even if he goes on to lose 119-109.

 

Round 6

Valencia is now eating a bevy of left jabs as Cave turns orthodox, confusing him momentarily and pushing him backward. Cave reverts to southpaw, and with it, the submissive role. Valencia doesn't manage to do much with the initiative, so Cave seizes it back, although he remains in his native lefty stance this time. Cave flipping his elbows up into Valencia's body and working inclining 1-2s into the face. Cave hunkers down and slaps the sides of Valencia after blocking some of the Mexican's own body shots. Valencia, however, starting to find a home for big wide roundhouse reaches behind Cave's elbows. Cave goes down, and chaos ensues. The people at ringside have no idea what's going on; nor do I. The person recording (again, I think Alex) keeps asking those standing next to him "was that a low blow?". The ref didn't give Cave a count, so I think it wasn't ruled a knockdown. Indeed no, he sends Cave to a neutral corner and drags Valencia over to ring center for a walk of shame, and docks him a point. So yep, low blow.

10-8 Cave

59-54 Cave

 

Round 7

Valencia is getting railroaded now, Cave backing him up with either hard-thrust double jabs on the forward trot, or simply breaking into a canter, turning sideways a pace off, and ramming his right shoulder into Valencia's gut. Valencia being positioned on the ropes where Cave lights him up with right jabs & hooks, and left uppercuts, all while melting away from Valencia's countering attempts with parting ducks or quick jerky leans aside. Cave is tattooing Valencia now with the right jab on the nose, dancing in and out and making Valencia miss his straightforward 1-2 and jab/uppercut. Valencia does land a two-piece at the bell, mostly because Cave got overconfident sagging his weight into the ropes while sitting on the middle one and then popping up at the wrong moment.

10-9 Cave

69-63 Cave

 

Round 8

Valencia is getting jabbed in the face as Cave leaps up at him, both feet in the air, then loading up on counter left uppercuts that either miss or just graze Cave on the way out with "low tide". Cave is landing 2-3 for every one glancing shot of Valencia's; his sharper than Valencia's but still not exactly squeaky-clean themselves. Valencia is able to bait Cave into a battle of uppercuts on the inside and scrapes his cheeks with a couple. Posting up at mid-range instead, Cave is ducking and leaning his upper body in toward Valencia with flashy but light straight flurries. Valencia loops a left into the guard to knock Cave back a step, but Cave is right back on him, shoving him into the ropes. Both are fatigued, and the quality of their punches bottoming out, but Cave is much busier.

10-9 Cave

79-72 Cave

 

Well, enough time has now passed that we have definitely missed the second WBC open scoring read-out...and probably all of the ninth round, as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Amateur hour, man. They had that whole 15 minute video while Cave was shadowboxing and getting his wrists taped, with all the drama over who's going to get stuck on cinematography detail, and NOT ONE PERSON had it occur to them maybe they should check what percentage the battery was on and charge the damn phone before showtime?!?

 

...and tenth. Eleventh should be underway.

 

Almost can't believe I forced my smiling & eager girlfriend to sit there and listen to her police blotter with headphones (or do whatever else to amuse herself, quietly, until my business here concluded) just in case the stream came back up (which it never did, and by now mathematically it must be over).

D- as a boyfriend.
A+ as a boxing fan.

 

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Official cards:

120-107
120-107
120-107

UD for Cave

 

"The King of Hali" should retire on this medium high note, because attempting to climb the rankings, pushing 40, would be one thing if he was still demonstrating world class form - but this version looked badly diminished from the guy that deserved the nod over Escandón. Yes, his style was just as ugly then - but he was less discombobulated and got hit more today (and I can't imagine, as matter of course, that Valencia is regularly more accurate than Escandón).

 

...btw, @CST80, you going to be staying up a bit later than usual to do the RBR for the Dubai show on ESPN+ (Catterall vs. Kryeziu) in the morning? It starts at 10:30am EST, and should be over by 3pm (midnight local time; which happens to be right around when I'm getting home ...just in time for the MTK tourney featuring two Catterall victims) - because I can't.

If not, maybe @Somachenko can pick it up.