Welcome to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column where we cover all the even remotely prominent results that didn’t have separate articles. This week we have a Michael Katsidis sighting, a fake heavyweight title fight, a real title fight, and much more. As the holiday season approaches, the sport is slowing a little, but for now there is still plenty to cover.
On the Radar Results
Devon Alexander returns to form on FS1
Gamboa, Barrera, and Kovalev win on HBO
Saturday, November 25th
Michael Katsidis (33-7, 24 KOs) SD3 Robert Toomey (14-10, 6 KOs) & Jamie Hilt (8-3-1) SD3 Michael Katsidis (33-8, 24 KOs), welterweights – Australia
Former top lightweight Michael Katsidis is now 37. Seven years ago he was fighting Juan Manuel Marquez in a unified lightweight titlefight and turning in a decent performance before being stopped late. Now he is fighting and losing in a one night welterweight tournament back home Australia, a field that was eventually won by a 20 loss fighter. Katsidis was long one of the most exciting fighters in the world, but his warring style caused him age rather poorly. Now here he is. In March Katsidis broke a two year lay off with a win at 140, so hopefully he goes back down there if he insists on fighting still.
Manuel Charr (31-4, 17 KOs) UD12 Alexander Ustinov (34-2, 25 KOs), heavyweights – Germany
I am usually the biggest and loudest detractor of the WBA in the business. I hate how so many of the media for so long called these secondary belts world titles and have rallied and rallied against doing so. Yet, I am going to defend this one. Hear me out.
Long story short, the WBA legally owes 44 year old Fres Oquendo a world title shot following a successful Oquendo lawsuit. Do you want to see Anthony Joshua faced with the decision of being stripped of a belt or waste an entire camp and one of his two fights a year on a 30 second KO of Oquendo? Of course not. Luckily, in a reality that almost redeems years of WBA shittiness, the stupid sanctioning body has had multiple belts it has called world titles long before the Oquendo situation. We face a choice where either we have to strip AJ, see Joshua v Oquendo, or let the WBA trot out one of the stupid non-world titles they call one to satisfy the legal ruling on a technicality.
I say bring on the WBA regular belt and keep it alive until you get it on a real contender. So if they want to ring a little more money out of it now, why not? They have to trot it out for Fres Oquendo anyway. Does it matter if they do it early? Charr will defend it against Oquendo, or if it still isn’t ready then against someone else in the interim. Eventually the Oquendo situation will be resolved and then they can get this belt on an actual contender, or at least someone in the top 25 at heavyweight. At that point they can order the belts “unified” and move on with it. For once, it makes sense.
This fight wasn’t bad either if you want a not terrible heavyweight fight to watch. No one really cares though. Neither Charr nor Ustinov is a contender.
Julio Ceja (32-2, 28 KOs) UD12 Breilor Teran (20-15-1, 13 KOs), super bantamweights – Mexico
This stay busy fight was nearly a disaster for WBC super bantamweight mandatory challenger Julio Ceja. The 25 year old dropped his journeyman in the first round and appeared to be rolling to the rout that was expected, but that is not how this went. After failing to put Teran away, Ceja seemed a little ill prepared to go the distance and began to really be bothered by his opponent’s style, particularly his jab and movement. The one wide scorecard was nonsensical, but the other two coming back 115-112 and 114-113 were right on. Had Ceja not hurt and dropped Teran in the first round, he may very well have lost this fight and his mandatory status to Rey Vargas’s belt. Vargas is an excellent fighter making a mandatory defense this weekend on HBO. Ceja will have to do much better than this to finally get a full world title.
Mark Magsayo (18-0, 13 KOs) UD12 Shota Hayashi (30-7-1, 18 KOs), featherweights – Phillipines
Top Filipino prospect Mark Magsayo stayed unbeaten here against high Japanese domestic level fighter Shota Hayashi. The sharp 22 year old had his Japanese opponent hurt a few times in this contest, but he couldn’t find a stoppage. Magsayo has long been defending a significant minor WBO belt and he has to be close to a title shot there at this point. A matchup with their titleholder Oscar Valdez is one I’d be salivating over too. Let’s hope the WBO orders that in 2018. Given that they have JoJo Diaz ranked #1 and Magsayo ranked #2, an eliminator between those two would also be something worth celebrating.
Wanheng Menayothin (49-0, 17 KOs) UD12 Tatsuya Fukuhara (19-6-6, 7 KOs), WBC minimumweight title
Wanheng Menayothin has been in the news for flirting with Mayweather’s 50-0 record with his forty ninth win here in defense of his 105 lb WBC belt, but I am not sure what that means, exactly. Fighters have started better than 50-0 before. As is tradition for Thailand’s boxers, Menayothin has fought woeful competition for all but the last couple years of his career. Even since winning his belt three years ago, there aren’t really top contenders in the division for him to have fought. Menayothin still also takes six round fights against club fighters in between title defense even to this day as well. So yes, Wanheng Menayothin will probably be 50-0 after his next fight, but does it actually mean anything? I don’t think so. Then again, I am openly a minimumweight hater that would dissolve the division tomorrow. Sorry Finito and Iron Boy, but you guys still would have been great at 108.
Fukuhara put up a pretty good fight here, by the way, but neither of these guys would be considered world class fighters even three pounds north.
Bakhram Murtazaliev (11-0, 9 KOs) TKO5 Carlos Galvan (16-6-1, 15 KOs), junior middleweights & Meiirim Nursultanov (5-0, 4 KOs) TKO2 Eric Moon (7-1, 6 KOs), middleweights – New York
Kathy Duva and Main Events are trying to strike that Sergey Kovalev lightning twice here with Eastern Europeans Murtazaliev and Nursultanov, a Russian 154 lber and Ukrainian middleweight respectively. The Russian looks a little further along in terms of this record, but Nursultanov went 11-1 in the semi-professional and moderately tough World Series of Boxing too. Main Events hasn’t released any video of these fights yet. Given their poor online presence, they probably won’t either. But keep these names in mind going forward as they are promising prospects and Duva’s stable is otherwise really thin.
Constantin Bejenaru (13-0, 3 KOs) UD10 Thabiso Mchunu (18-4, 10 KOs), cruiserweights – Connecticut
This is definitely a career trajectory altering win for the light punching Maldovan cruiserweight. After two consecutive clear ShoBox wins, Bejenaru here picked up a win over a guy I have ranked fifteenth in the world at the weight in South Africa’s Thabiso Mchunu. Mchunu is a man who has losses only to the likes of Oleksandr Usyk and Junior Makabu while beating guys like Johnny Muller and Olanrewaju Durodola. I honestly did not expect this result. Unfortunately there is no video of it that I can find, however, so I guess we just have to take it at face value. Live reports say Bejenaru also scored a seventh round knockdown.
Friday, November 24th
Cristofer Rosales (26-3, 17 KOs) TKO8 Alexander Taylor (16-20-2, 5 KOs), flyweights – Nicaragua
When Nicaraguan flyweight Cristofer Rosales lost a wide decision to Andrew Selby on the road in May, he looked like a fighter with little offer to the world stage. Maybe that is who he is, but with dominant wins over Martin Tecuapetla (and his deceiving record) and touted prospect Mohammed Obbadi, maybe not. I don’t know why Rosales performed so poorly against Selby. Maybe it was the travel, the stage, or maybe Selby is just much better than we realized, but Cristofer Rosales does seem to be a real flyweight contender at this point. Here he beat up a journeyman in a stay busy fight while waiting for something bigger.
Byron Rojas (23-3-3, 10 KOs) UD6 Omar Ortiz (12-6-1, 6 KOs), minimumweights – Nicaragua
Former minimumweight titleholder Byron Rojas is 6-0 since losing the title he picked up from a good fighter in Hekkie Budler to Thailand’s Knockout CP Freshmart. Granted, none of these fights have been against good competition because there isn’t really any at 105, but they are wins nonetheless. For now, Rojas is still resigned to fighting six and eight rounders until something better comes along.
John Joe Nevin (9-0, 4 KOs) PTS6 Lee Connelly (7-29-3), junior welterweights – Northern Ireland
What a strange run it has been so far for Irish 2012 Olympic silver medalist John Joe Nevin. First it was a having his legs broken with a golf club after during a bar fight that set him back. Yes, both legs. Then it was promotional issues, and then it was a rib injury. Even this fight was delayed nearly two months because of paperwork issues for his original opponent. In the five years since his big showing in London, the potential Irish star has only now managed nine pro fights. This was his first in 2017 and he also only had one in 2016. It is hard to imagine John Joe Nevin amounting to a whole lot at this point, but he is only 28 at least.
Tuesday, November 21st
Wenfeng Ge (10-0, 6 KOs) UD12 Amnat Ruenroeng (18-2, 6 KOs), super flyweights – China
In 2014 and 2015, Amnat Ruenroeng went on a run that saw him beat Rocky Fuentes, Kazuto Ioka, McWilliams Arroyo, Zou Shiming, and John Riel Casimero in an underrated five fight stretch that is about as good as any run as I have seen at flyweight. Unfortunately for Thai flyweight, he had a much different 2016. First he was surprisingly stopped in a rematch with John Riel Casimero, Then he made an ill fated bid for Olympic glory and was stopped in the second round there too. After a get well comeback fight in August against a complete no hope opponent, Ruenroeng dropped this decision against a Chinese fighter I had never heard of until this result quietly broke mid week. 37 is ancient for the flyweights so this is no real shock from that perspective, but it is never fun to see a former top fighter so low.
Antonio Russell (10-0, 8 KOs) TKO1 Marco Antonio Mendoza (11-6-1, 7 KOs), bantamweights & Gary Antuanne Russell (3-0, 3 KOs) TKO1 Larry Yanez (4-8-2), junior welterweights – Florida
Gary Russell Jr’s two brothers were both in action on the off television undercard of Tuesday’s PBC on FS1 show. Though Antonio is farther along in his career, 21 year old Gary Antuanne is the major prospect here. In Rio, Gary Antuanne Russell lost to eventual gold medalist Fazliddin Gaibnazarov by controversial decision in the quarterfinals. Had that split decision gone his way as many thought it should have, he would have medaled and been a real threat to win gold. Antonio never quite made it to that international level as an amateur. So far Gary Antuanne Russell has blown out all three of his opponents in one, but they have been pretty weak too.
