Last night an excellent PBC on FS1 card on paper delivered in the ring. In the main event, Sergiy Derevyanchenko battered and eventually stopped Tureano Johnson to earn his spot as the IBF’s next mandatory challenger in the middleweight division. Hugo Centeno Jr also scored a modest upset over previously unbeaten Immanuwel Aleem via a one shot knockout.
Sergiy Derevyanchenko (11-0, 9 KOs) absolutely destroyed Tureano Johnson (20-2, 14 KOs) in the main event. While the super tough Bahamas native was game all the way through, the Ukrainian technician thoroughly outclassed him all the way through. Johnson never stopped putting pressure on all the way to his final round finish, but all he got in return was a nonstop beating.
In the eleventh round Derevyanchenko really upped the intensity and looked for the finish. The fight could have been stopped at any point in that round. There was absolutely no reason for Tureano then to come out for the twelfth, but for whatever reason his corner marched him back out for his final assault. It didn’t take long in the that round for him to go down for the first time. He went down hard too. Thankfully the fight was called off immediately.
With the win Derevyanchenko now becomes the IBF mandatory challenger to the winner of the upcoming Gennady Golovkin versus Canelo Alvarez superfight next month. In either case, that would be a matchup I would welcome.
In the first two rounds of the co-main event, Hugo Centeno Jr (26-1, 14 KOs) somewhat comfortably outboxed Immanuwel Aleem (17-1-1, 10 KOs). It wasn’t a schooling or super one sided, but he was winning the rounds using his range. In the third all scoring became moot, however, when one sharp left hook over Aleem’s dropping guard landed square on the chin. Just like that Immanuwel Aleem was an undefeated prospect no more.
This was a bit of a surprising result. Last time out Aleem had won a war against power punching Ievgen Khytrov in which he took many big shots. Hugo Centeno Jr is not supposed to be half the puncher that Khytrov is, yet we have this result anyway. This result just goes to show that anything can happen in the ring. With the highlight reel knockout win, Hugo Centeno Jr has reestablished himself as a young fighter to watch in the middleweight division.
Opening the FS1 broadcast, unbeaten 21 year old lightweight prospect Austin Dulay (11-0, 8 KOs) battered overmatched Colombian Carlos Padilla (16-6-1, 10 KOs) for three rounds before he quit on the stool after three. Dulay basically hurt Padilla at will here and the fight could have even been called sooner.
