Under the Radar Fight Results (Week Ending 7/16/17)

It is that time of the week again for Under the Radar Fight Results. This is where I go over all the even remotely prominent fight results of the week that I have not already covered in full. This week featured a lot of action, much of which was televised in the US. I encourage anyone interested in my thoughts on the more prominent fights to engage with the links below. Otherwise, read on!

On the Radar Results

Baranchyk windmills his way to another ShoBox win

Eubank dominates Abraham, Selby retains

Figueroa, Browne, and Kownacki smash out early wins on FOX

Berchelt wins, Corrales escapes, and Barrera upsets on HBO

Jamal James and Brandon Figueroa win on FS1

 

Under the Radar Fight Results

 

Saturday, July 15th

Jai Opetaia (12-0, 9 KOs) TKO8 Daniel Ammann (32-10-1, 7 KOs), cruiserweights – Australia

22 year old 2012 Australian Olympian Jai Opetaia took his first fight against an opponent with a relatively positive professional record here in his twelfth fight. Previously he had never beaten an opponent who both had a winning record and more than three wins, so needless to say Opetaia is being moved slowly. Video of his fights is hard to come by, but from what I can find he does seem to be a plus athlete who throws technically sound shots. Opetaia is of Samoan heritage as well as that seems to be super important to everyone writing about him when I google his name. He also has his next fight booked for early September in Samoa against a 9-0, 21 year old American who, as a cruiserweight, has fought seven of his nine bouts in Mexico. That was a very weird sentence.

Firat Arslan (40-8-2, 25 KOs) TKO6 Goran Delic (31-2, 7 KOs), cruiserweights – Germany

At soon to be age 47, Firat Arslan just keeps on rolling against this level of competition. Don’t be fooled by Delic’s record though. He is from Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the primary countries that resulted from the 90s fall of Yugoslavia. Those nations, most prominently in relevance to boxing also Serbia and Croatia, have a reasonably active, very low level fight scene that allows fighters well below world level to rack of gaudy records. As for Arslan, he held a world title a decade ago in his late 30s and was still fighting on a reasonable level just three years ago when he very narrowly lost a world title shot against Yoan Pablo Hernandez by split decision. Despite not having fought anyone near world level for three years now, Arslan remaining a top twenty fighter in a division deeper than most late in his 40s is a remarkable accomplishment.

Fatih Keles (9-0-1, 5 KOs) D10 Renaldo Garrido (19-15-2, 3 KOs), junior welterweights – Germany

Long term for Keles this draw could prove to be irrelevant, but for now it does at least some real damage to his status as a prospect to watch. The silver lining here for Keles, a 2012 Turkish Olympian wisely basing his career out of Germany, is that an examination of Garrido’s record shows him to be a little better than a 15 loss record suggests on the surface. For example, since May of 2015 Garrido is now 5-6-1. All six of those loses came against fighters with very positive records, three of which were by split or majority decision and another by disqualification. The other two he lost competitively scored decisions, the most recent of which was against Frankie Gavin. Everyone who paid attention to that result lambasted Gavin as for underachieving as always, but I think the real story here is that Garrido is just one of those pretty good despite his record fighters. Keles is now one of the cautionary tales as to why major promoters don’t often let their young prospects hold and then defend a minor major organization belt like his WBO European strap. The fighter then can be nudged into low reward, high risk fights like this one.

Thammanoon Niyomtrong (16-0, 7 KOs) UD12 Rey Loreto (23-14, 15 KOs), WBA minimumweight title – Thailand

Hey, a minimumweight title fight. Niyomtrong, better known by his delightfully ridiculous sponsored name of Knockout CP Freshmart, made the second defense of his belt since being elevated from interim to full titlist for the WBA. Filipino Ray Loreto, primarily a light flyweight, turned pro at 16 and promptly started 8-11. Even after this loss Loreto is now 15-3 since then against competition of steadily increasing quality, so this is a very good win for Niyomtrong/Freshmart.

Yet, minimumweights. To be frank, this division has been a consistent mess since its inception in the late 80s. Other than world title fights on UTR, I do not cover it. There has never been any depth, all the titlists come out of no where because of this, the top fighters that do emerge never fight each other while still in the division, and before long 99% of them move up three pounds to light flyweight anyway where they make slightly more than the nothing there is at 105. While light flyweight has reached a level of greatness many times, there is no reason for minimumweight to exist.

 

Kerman Lejarraga (23-0, 19 KOs) TKO3 Azael Cosio (20-6-2, 17 KOs), junior middleweights – Spain

Power punching, rat tail wearing Spaniard Kerman Lejarraga is a Sergio Martinez, Maravilla Promotions prospect who got a ShoBox fight in June and sort of impressed with an early knockout over an atrocious looking opponent. Here Lejarraga returned to Spain where he has had all the rest of his fights barely a month later and scored yet another early stoppage. I do think it is clear that the 25 year old Maravilla fighter does have real power, but he is also crude technically, a little clumsy, and wears a rat tail, so I suspect he will hit his ceiling sooner rather than later when he and his team decide it is time to start moving up.

Nathan Gorman (10-0, 8 KOs) TKO5 Antonio Sousa (4-6-1, 3 KOs), heavyweights – England

I guess Frank Warren is trying to make 21 year old heavyweight Nate Gorman a thing now, so here we are. I can’t find this fight yet, but a few others are up on youtube so I went through them. I regretted mentally committing to the ordeal pretty quickly. It isn’t all bad. Gorman has a nice jab and surprising hand speed, but after a round or so he quickly falls into the routine of jab, right hand, fall in, and clinch. Over, and over, and over. He is trained by Ricky Hatton though so at least that makes sense.

Mercito Gesta (31-1-2, 17 KOs) KO8 Martin Honorio (33-11-1, 16 KOs), lightweights – California

Now fighting for Golden Boy, Mercito Gesta is still a pretty good fighter. He is not world level, but he will be a quality card filler for Oscar and company while being able to be a credible win for someone better in the 135-140 corridor should they so choose to use him in that capacity. There was a time when Honorio too was at this level, maybe a bit above it even as he did beat John Molina, but that was six or seven years ago. Now he is well below it and accordingly he got knocked out here.

John Vera Jr. (17-0, 10 KOs) UD10 Daniel Rosario (11-3, 10 KOs). junior middleweights – Arizona

Main eventing a pretty good Roy Jones Jr promoted show in Phoenix that was streamed on the FightNight Live Facebook page, John Vera Jr used patience and technical skill to outpoint Daniel Rosario. Rosario’s ultra-aggressiveness over swayed the judges here in my view as I had this much wider for Vera. Regardless, 28 year old John Vera Jr is by no means a big time prospect, but he is a competent pro fighter with multiple defenses of a minor WBA belt that puts him prominent in their rankings. As much as I argued that minor major sanctioning body belt doesn’t make sense for a young Olympic prospect above in the case of Fatih Keles, it makes all the sense for someone like John Vera who would have really struggled to both find fights and exposure otherwise.

Rico Ramos (26-5, 13 KOs) UD10 Tony Lopez (12-3, 4 KOs), super bantamweights – Arizona

Five years and thirteen fights ago, Rico Ramos was a 25 year old, 20-0 world champion after winning the WBA belt at super bantamweight. Then he made his first defense against an 8-0 Guillermo Rigondeaux and, counting that fight, is 6-5 since. Losing to Rigondeaux in itself is no crime, but Ramos appeared to barely try in that fight. Despite his clear physical talent, Ramos had already developed a reputation for being a very offensively shy fighter and that night cemented it. He has done nothing since to shake it, losing a pair of 2013 decisions to guys he might have been better than because he didn’t fight. A spirited closing run that almost stole a 2014 bout with Jesus Cuellar bought a little goodwill despite him not having fought much in the first half of the very same contest, but shortly after he was put out with one shot from Claudio Marrero. Since then, he has fought four fights on this level and has not stepped back up. From a talent to performance perspective, Ramos is one of the biggest underperformers of our era. This fight, the co-main event of the Roy Jones Jr card, was predictably very tedious to watch.

Abel Ramos (18-2, 13 KOs) TKO6 Emmanuel Robles (15-3, 4 KOs), welterweights – Arizona

Abel Ramos, on the same FightNight Live card but unrelated to Rico, was returning here from a closely contested loss on ShoBox in February to Russian madman (in terms of his wild fighting style) Ivan Baranchyk. That fight will not have had a big enough stage to really contend for the honor, but in terms of the in ring action it was undoubtedly a fight of the year candidate. Don’t sleep on Abel Ramos. He passes the eye test with good outside skill and real pop, but even his resume is much better than it appears. First, his losses are to Ivan Baranchyk in a fight that should have been scored much more closely and Regis Prograis who is one of the best prospects in all the sport. Abel’s two draws came early in his career in a pair of six rounders against two quality fighters in Levan Ghvamichava and Maurice Hooker. These are not bad results at all.

Gerome Quigley, Jr (17-0, 15 KOs) UD10 Luis Hernandez (16-5, 9 KOs), welterweights – Washington DC

I don’t know much about Gerome Quigley as a fighter. His record is good, but it is dramatically inflated. Towards the end of 2015 Quigley went to Germany and stopped an 11-1-1 fighter in the first round, but otherwise this was his only his second fight against an opponent with a winning record. At 33, that is not particularly inspiring. Yet there is something interesting about Quigley and it is the fact that he is a fighter and promoter. Over his last couple fights, Quigley has started GQ Promotions and put on his own shows. I can only think of one fighter who has ever been successful reaching the world stage for the first time while promoting himself. That was Beibut Shumenov, but even he had to sign with a promoter once there to help facilitate. It will be interesting to see what Quigley can accomplish on his own.

 

Friday, July 14th

Blake Caparello (25-2-1, 9 KOs) TKO6 Jordan Tai (10-4, 9 KOs), super middleweights – Australia

If I told you there was a fighter who had dominated Allan Green and dropped both Andre Dirrell and Sergei Kovalev, Australia’s Blake Caparello and his poor knockout ratio probably wouldn’t come to mind. He is indeed the answer though. Caparello is a pretty good boxer, probably top ten pound for pound in Australia, but outside of those two shining moments, the Dirrell and Kovalev fights proved him to be well below their world level. Caparello will probably inevitably get another crack at a world level fight in a couple years, but the 160-175 corridor is surprisingly well stocked in Australia right now. Good domestic fights could be made against the likes of Daniel Geale, Sakio Bika, Renold Quinlan, Sam Soliman, or, perhaps most interestingly, Daniel Hooper. Despite only having scored nine knockouts, this was Caparello’s third straight KO against middling Aussie competition.

Czar Amonsot (34-3-3, 22 KOs) NC2 Martin Enrique Escobar (17-3, 14 KOs), junior welterweights – Australia

In 2007, Czar Amonsot fought an epic war with Michael Katsidis in Las Vegas that was as brutal as any fight you can find. Unfortunately, the repercussions matched the savagery, as it was revealed Amonsot had suffered a brain bleed in the bout when he was taken to the hospital afterward. That somehow only kept Amonsot away for a year and a half, however, and he returned to fighting in the little monitored Filipino fight scene before returning to fight in Australia three years after the bleed. He has fought there since and is undefeated since the Katsidis fight, holding prominent minor titles that put him awkwardly close to a title fight.

I get very frustrated when fans cry for fighters to retire because of what could happen with diminished skills. I firmly believe in self determination on the individual level, especially in terms of assessing your own risk. Amonsot does not fit that category though. He should not be fighting because of what did happen, not what could happen alone. To allow a career of a man to continue after suffering a brain bleeding specifically from fighting already is wildly irresponsible. Right now he is ranked number three by the WBA too. We could be a year or so from the Crawford/Indongo winner being mandated to fight him if he continues to win. This is not okay anywhere, let alone in a fully developed country like Australia.

Kiko Martinez (37-8-1, 27 KOs) TKO4  Franklin Varela (22-34, 10 KOs), featherweights – Spain

In 2013 through the first half of the following year, Spaniard Kiko Martinez somewhat improbably rose to the world level by winning and twice successfully defending a belt. He lost it wide to Frampton later that year and then was destroyed in two by Scott Quigg early the following year in a bid to win a second title in the same weight class. That night probably ended his status as a real contender, but if not then last February’s five round massacre courtesy of Leo Santa Cruz definitely did. Martinez followed that night with an eight round draw against a seventeen loss fighter. The fact that Martinez nearly upset Josh Warrington earlier this year speaks not to a Kiko Martinez resurgence, but to a pretty clear ceiling above Warrington’s head. Here Kiko scored a cut stoppage win over a 33 loss fighter. Martinez is absolutely done at world level, but he has some name now in both Spain and the UK so perhaps a fight on that level still makes sense.

Antoine Douglas (22-1-1, 16 KOs) KO4 Juan De Angel (20-7-1.18 KOs), super middleweights – Oklahoma

Antoine Douglas was a real top prospect, but apparent mafioso Avtandil Khurtsidze was far too much, too soon for him. He is 3-0 since that beating and has been collecting minor belts in a very clear attempt to positioning himself high in sanctioning body rankings. Douglas was and probably still is a very talented fighter, but guys don’t always come back well from sustained beatings like the one Antoine received from Khurtsidze. I remain apprehensive about his chances going forward.

Charles Conwell (4-0, 4 KOs) TKO2 Rick Graham (4-17-2, 1 KO), junior middleweights – Oklahoma

19 year old 2016 US Olympian Charles Conwell picked up his fourth win here against an obviously overmatched opponent. I am judging that by the records, anyway, as I still haven’t been able to see Conwell fight except for a grainy youtube video of his second bout. He signed with Lou DiBella out of the Olympics and has been fighting deep on cards well before any television cameras are broadcasting.

Orlando Lora (33-7-2, 21 KOs) KO7 Hector Camacho Jr (58-7-1, 32 KOs), middleweights – Nevada

Hector “Macho” Camacho may never have quite fully lived up to his immense talent, but he was still a great fighter. His son? Not so much. Not even close to world level in his prime at more appropriate weights, Camacho Jr’s comeback bid after three years away at age 38 ended about as well as it was always going to end. Lora is not close to world level and was a junior middleweight masquerading as a super middleweight here fighting a light heavyweight. This was still the outcome.

Rene Alvarado (26-8, 18 KOs) KO7 Roger Gutierrez (15-1-1, 12 KOs), junior lightweights – California

Rene Alvararo is a good fighter. In his very active past three years, he has good wins over Jayson Velez and Robinson Castellanos. He also has six losses in that span, albeit all to good to really good fighters. Losing to Alvarado is not a career death knell by any means, but Gutierrez really didn’t look good at all here Golden Boy’s LA Fight Club series. This was the US debut for the Venezuelan. I’d be surprised if Golden Boy has any interest in promoting him going forward.

 

Joshua Franco (12-0, 6 KOs) UD6 Antonio Rodriguez (11-17-1, 5 KOs), bantamweights – California

On the other hand, Joshua Franco is a young fighter who does look like a good young prospect in Golden Boy’s stable. He was able to safely fight at bantamweight here in what was essentially a record building exercise, but Franco should continue back down at super flyweight for as long as possible. At only 21, that will probably be a while for the Texan. As a fighter, Franco demonstrates excellent ringcraft with his positioning and has sharp, coordinated hands that he puts together very well, especially for his age. Franco has already fought as a Golden Boy on ESPN co-main event and I expect Golden Boy to go more in that direction with him going forward than low level Estrella TV fights like this one.

Wednesday, June 12th

DeMarcus Corley (50-28-1, 28 KOs) UD8 Ramel Lewis (7-7 4 KOs), junior middleweights – Jamaica

As always, Chop Chop Corley keepings chopping. He won his world title back in 2001 and successfully defended it twice including a win over massive puncher Randall Bailey. He then lost it to Zab Judah, but only by the narrowest of split decisions. Next he fought a young Floyd Mayweather Jr in one of the more entertaining bouts of Mayweather’s career before being executed by a young Miguel Cotto a couple fights later. Since then he has traveled the world, mostly losing but sometimes winning. Look at this list of countries he has fought in: USA, China, Puerto Rico, England, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan, Russia, Argentina, Ukraine, Canada, Turkey, Bolivia, Mexico, Sweden, Denmark, Guyana, and Jamaica. Pound for pound, Chop Chop is the best traveled fighter in the sport.

Tuesday, June 11th

Nihito Arakawa (30-6-1, 18 KOs) TKO6  Marbon Bodiongan (16-6-2)

Arakawa engaged in a 2013 fight of the year candidate with Omar Figueroa on Showtime. After that bout, he lost to Jorge Linares, following that with a 1-2 record in Japanese domestic fights. Arakawa was never a world level fighter and though Figueroa clearly beat him, what Nihito was able to do return probably in hindsight should have been viewed more of a commentary on Figueroa than anything else. With Omar back this weekend having disposed of the ghost of The Ghost, it feels weirdly appropriate that Arakawa fought too.

Monday, June 10th 

Tomoki Kameda (34-2, 20 KOs) UD10 Ivan Morales (31-3, 19 KOs), super bantamweights – Japan

Former world titlist Tomoki Kameda is the only one of the three Kameda brothers currently still active in the sport. All three brothers have won world titles and are incredibly popular in Japan, especially eldest brother Koki who multiple times drew absolutely absurd, better than Super Bowl type ratings in Japan relative to their population. Tomoki lost his bantamweight world title in 2015 in a narrow fight against Jamie McDonnell and then failed to win it back in a rematch bid the same year. He is 3-0 up at super bantamweight since and it is only a matter of time until he gets another title shot.