Even when the sport of boxing slows to a crawl, it never stops. This weekend was free of major fights, but there were still four bouts with some world level implications split between two cards in England and one in Mexico.
The fight I was looking forward to the most was unbeaten super middleweight prospect Avni Yildrim (16-0, 10 KOs) of Turkey traveling to Mexico to fight Marco Antonio Periban (24-4-1, 16 KOs). Periban, since being blown out by Degale, has become a pretty underrated fighter when his whole resume is considered. Having fought on basically even terms with J’Leon Love, Sakio Bika, and most impressively Badou Jack, the former world title challenger has done enough to deserve a better reputation than the one he has as a journeyman. Accordingly, I anticipated this being a great test for the aggressive Turkish prospect.
The fight mostly delivered on that front. Periban boxed very well through the first five rounds and swept them on my card. From the sixth on, however, Yildrim’s pressure caught up to Periban and he was able to land the better shots much more consistently. Though they both were clearly tiring and engaged in a lot of clinching in the last third of the fight, Yildrim was able to close strong to seal the win. He dropped Periban at the very end of the eleventh and landed several big shots in the twelfth. He probably would have gotten a stoppage in a classic fifteen round fight, but in the modern era Avni Yildrim had to settle for a decision win. I thought the 117-110 scores were a bit wide, but I also should note that my only avenue for watching was a low resolution youtube upload.
Over in the UK Khalid Yafai (22-0, 15 KOs) successfully defended his WBA super flyweight title in a predictably one sided fight against Suguru Muranaka (25-3-1, 8 KOs). Yafai’s Japanese opponent was certainly game, but he was always going to be widely outclassed here. The fight was a virtual shutout despite Muranaka showing a ton of heart and an excellent chin in making it to the finish. Much more interestingly, Yafai continued to call out Chocolatito after the fight. Yafai would be a clear underdog in that bout, but Gonzales is aging and has been proven vulnerable at the weight. I’d like to see the fight once Chocolatito finishes his business with Rungvisai.
On the Yafai/Muranaka undercard, Sam Eggington (21-3, 13 KOs) continued his career upswing and won the European welterweight belt by scoring a highlight reel knockout over Ceferino Rodriguez (24-2, 12 KOs). If you didn’t see it, find it. Eggington was rightfully the favorite here, but I didn’t see him winning quite like that. Still only 23, Sam has a pretty bright future ahead of him as he continues to improve. He is going to need a favorable matchup to win a world title if he can find his way to a shot, but he will be one of those guys that I am happy is getting the payday even when I know he probably can’t win if that time comes.
Finally, Josh Warrington (25-0, 5 KOs) was pretty lucky to escape with a win over Kiko Martinez (36-8-1, 26 KOs) in their main event. I scored it a draw and many others I saw scored it for Martinez. For having such little power Warrington can be an entertaining volume puncher, but this performance does not bode well for his future to say the least. Kiko Martinez has been outright thrashed by world level competition in the last couple years. Two fights ago he barely mustered an eight round draw against a seventeen loss Spanish journeyman. I am sure Kiko was much more motivated for this fight than that draw, but that can’t completely account for such a performance differential like this one. Warrington found his ceiling here and it is not up at the highest levels of the sport.
