It was a strange decision when Golden Boy’s ESPN series decided to go against Ward/Kovalev II last night. Accordingly, this card had even less than the usual minimal buzz that a show like this generates. Nevertheless, the show went on. In the main event, Fidel Maldanado Jr scored an upset decision over Pablo Cesar Cano while super flyweight prospect Joshua Franco prevailed in the co-feature.
One round aside, Fidel Maldonado (24-3-1, 19 KOs) fought a near perfect if not exactly exciting fight in the main event. This was by far his career best win. It almost went all wrong in the fourth when a series of body shots from Pablo Cesar Cano (30-6-1, 21 KOs) hurt Maldonado, however. This caused him to drop his guard and Cano capitalized by dropping his opponent with a series of shots upstairs.
Otherwise, Maldonado controlled the entire fight start to finish. It didn’t matter what he chose to do. Whether he backed up and countered or came forward and pressured, Maldonado clearly won near every minute of the fight. Pablo Cesar Cano, the far more accomplished of the two coming into the night, just did not look right in there. Teddy Atlas harped on his cut back down to junior welterweight as a potential culprit and he did look especially low energy. The cards came back a stupid split decision, because boxing, but the right man got the win in the end.
The co-featured bout brought the major TV debut of Texas super flyweight prospect Joshua Franco (11-0, 6 KOs) as he won a clear unanimous decision over a game, but mostly overmatched Oscar Mojica (10-3, 1 KO). Franco dropped Mojica at the end of the first, but he was otherwise unable to hurt his opponent here. Nevertheless, he looked like a very solid prospect to watch to going forward. He just has a really solid overall game already at only 21 years old.
In the televised opener, highly touted 19 year old Golden Boy junior welterweight prospect Vergil Ortiz (6-0, 6 KOs) made quick work of his Mexican club fighter of an opponent, Ricardo Fernandez (3-6-4). There wasn’t much going on here as Ortiz was able to do whatever he wanted. Fernandez was gamely stopped on his feet with about 45 seconds or so left in the first. At only 19, it will be a while before Ortiz steps up in all likelihood despite Teddy Atlas’s cries for the contrary.
