Showtime Championship Boxing brought us plenty of controversy this evening from Maryland, but it also brought us the predictable main event outcome. Gary Russell Jr overwhelmed yet another overmatched opponent in seven, but the real story of the night was the chaos that ensued following Dirrell’s win over Jose Uzcategui by disqualification. Rances Barthelemy also was victorious via some questionable scoring.
Gary Russell Jr (28-1, 17 KOs) chose to fight Oscar Escandon’s (25-3, 17 KOs) fight, but it didn’t matter. Since the titlist didn’t really choose to box at all, the challenger Escandon was able to land some in the first two rounds. It didn’t matter, however, as he was still taking much worse than he was giving.
In the third round Russell Jr hurt Escandon badly, dropping his Colombian opponent and generally battering him around the ring. It looked like Gary was going to get a stoppage here for a minute or so, but Oscar surprisingly survived. He was warned that another round like that would result in the referee ending the fight, however.
Escandon responded shockingly well in the fourth, maybe winning the round with high volume out of the southpaw stance. Again, it didn’t matter. Russell battered Escandon in the fifth in sixth, before hurting him and dropping him in the seventh. The challenger wasn’t really given an opportunity to recover as the fight was waved off immediately. It was the right decision given how much punishment he had taken.
Déjà vu was the theme of the co-main event of the Maryland show when Andre Dirrell (26-2, 16 KOs) was knocked out by an illegal blow for the second time in his career. The bell rang to end the eighth round while Jose Uzcategui was mid combination. Unfortunately he continued it, throwing two punches clear after the bell, the last of which knocked Dirrell out.
This was the second time in the bout that the Venezuelan had landed a significant shot clearly after the bell and he was rightfully disqualified in a fight that he may have been winning. It is a moot point now, but I would have had it a draw through eight if the fight had continued. Uzcategui started particularly well, sweeping the first four rounds on my card before his American opponent rallied to get back in the fight.
After the fight, things got much worse as a near riot broke out thanks to the Dirrell camp. One member of team Dirrell, maybe his uncle, went as far as to take a huge cheap shot at Uzcategui, landing clean on his chin out of no where in the corner. Karmically speaking, Jose might have deserved it. Legally speaking, that was assault with thousands of witnesses. An arrest needs to be made.
Worse yet, these actions post fight from Andre Dirrell’s team might have the net result of distracting from Uzcategui’s egregious foul. Serious action needs to be taken against him for what amounts to a second cheap shot in the fight, but now the post fight melee will be in danger of being the focus of any fallout. Not good look for the sport all around here.
In the Showtime opener from the US, Rances Barthelemy edged a tough, tough fight over the super game Belorussian Kyril Relikh. Relikh was far more active and scored a knockdown in the fifth, but his Cuban, two division titlist opponent was able to score more points overall chiefly behind a fierce body attack.
Barthelemy hurt Relikh twice in the fight on body shots, dropping him once. Showtime cried robbery, but I scored the fight 114-112 for Barthelemy. 117-109 is indeed too wide, but that doesn’t mean Barthelemy did not win that fight. This was frustrating for me as it was both clear to me that Barthelemy was going to earn a decision and that Showtime was going to cry robbery even before the scores were read, but I suppose there is nothing I can do about it.
