In a card exclusively full of ShoBox alumni making a return to the series, four entertaining fights were delivered. In the main event, Ivan Baranchyk used his simple, crude style to largely outwork Keenan Smith over eight rounds. For once, a Baranchyk fight might have been the worst on the card too as all three undercard bouts were even more entertaining than the main event.
I am going to say this with affection as I really like watching Ivan Baranchyk (17-0, 10 KOs) fight, but in so many ways the adopted Oklahoma hero is a pretty terrible fighter. His skill set is that of a complete novice, not a rising prospect. His offense is limited to crude, winging single shots at full power from the outside. When they land, they can be devastating, but most of the time they miss terribly and put him in poor position. Baranchyk has no footwork to speak of, often attacking completely squared up, and accordingly his defense is entirely non-existent.
With that said, fighters on the level of Keenan Smith (11-1, 6 KOs) are good enough to avoid enough of the simple offense to avoid being knocked out, but not to win. Make no mistake, Baranchyk’s rapidly diminishing knockout percentage is not commentary on his power being overrated, but that he is just not good enough to consistently land his power. Fighters like Smith just spend the rounds avoiding it. They don’t have the ability to slip and counter, but they are good enough to not get hit while losing rounds. As he stands now, Ivan Baranchyk will continue to win these fights, but elite junior welterweights will flat out destroy him without significant improvement.
The co-featured junior welterweight fight brought two quality opening rounds of slick boxing from Kenneth Sims Jr (12-1, 4 KOs) as he spent the first six minutes in the ring demonstrating his superiority in craft to Rolando Chinea (15-1-1, 6 KOs). It didn’t last, however, as he came out noticeably tired in a suddenly close third before all but falling apart under Chinea’s unrelenting pressure in the next three rounds. Rounds four through seven were just as lopsided for Chinea as the first two were for Sims. The eighth, however, finally brought fatigue for Chinea, likely due to his nearly 140 shots thrown in the seventh, an absurd number. Sims was able to narrowly edge out the eighth and final frame on heart though in a battle between two exhausted combatants. It wasn’t enough, however, as Chinea edged out a very narrow majority decision win by scores of 76-76 and 77-75 twice. Those were good scores.
The second fight of the card brought back super bantamweiht Adam Lopez (16-1-2, 8 KOs) for his record tying sixth ShoBox appearance in a competitive draw with unbeaten Glenn Dezurn Jr (9-0-1, 6 KOs). All three members of the ShoBox announce crew had the fight for Lopez, but I had it a draw like the official judges. Dezurn fought the first two rounds very well on the inside, but faded badly in the middle of the fight. Going into the final two rounds, a passionate plea from top trainer Barry Hunter got Dezurn working more against a suddenly more complacent Adam Lopez, winning both of those rounds on my card to make it a draw. This was Lopez’s first fight back from being stopped in nine in his first loss, a title eliminator against Daniel Roman, and this fight does further confirm that his ceiling is a bit below world level.
In the opener, former US amateur standout Leroy Davila (5-2, 3 KOs) took his second loss in a row on ShoBox when a big fifth round from now two time ShoBox stoppage winner Joshua Greer Jr (14-1-1, 6 KOs) caused Davila’s corner stopped the fight. Davila was a 2016 US Olympic alternate in Rio at 108 lbs. A year later, he has fought twice now on ShoBox three professional weight classes up at 118 lbs. If Davila can ever contend, he will probably need to relocate somewhere closer to Mexico where there is a consistent fight scene at flyweight and lower. For his part, Joshua Greer struggled just a little bit in the first couple rounds with Davila’s superior technical skills, but it didn’t take long for him to establish his size and convince Davila’s corner to pull their increasingly overwhelmed fighter out of the contest.
