Welcome to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column where I go over all the even remotely prominent results that I hadn’t already covered in previous articles. This week we have a sneak attack of a world title fight, Canelo’s brother, a significant cards in Russia and France, and a really underrated European fighter. This was one of those deceptively busy weeks when compared to the little that made it to big time television.
On the Radar Results
Roach Jr wins and Sparrow scores upset on ESPN2
Ali upsets Cotto and Vargas prevails on HBO
Under the Radar Fight Results
Sunday, December 3rd
Mark John Yap (28-12, 14 KOs) TKO10 Seizo Kono (19-9-1, 12 KOs), bantamweights – Japan
Top 20 bantamweight Mark John Yap of the Phillipines went on the road to Japan on Sunday to defend his OPBF strap, which is basically the Asian equivalent of the European title more or less except that Australia can play too. Yap has now won nine straight since May of 2015 and is a regional force at this point. This is a remarkable turnaround given that Yap went 6-10 from 2010 to the start of the streak. Still only 28, it will be interesting to see how far Yap can take this.
Saturday, December 2nd
Brock Jarvis (12-0, 11 KOs) KO1 Wichet Sengprakhon (8-1, 3 KOs), bantamweights – Australia
The jury is still out on 20 year old Brock Jarvis. He wasn’t a big time amateur. Given his age and experience, he is of course being matched very soft as well. He is at the very least blowing out these opponents as a real top prospect should be. What is definitely notable is that Jarvis is the pupil of trainer Jeff Fenech, one of the most successful and popular fighters in Australian history. Fenech was a three division world titleholder and probably should have grabbed a fourth given that his 1991 draw with Azumah Nelson for 130 lb belt was considered controversial. This was before the WBO too, making this a slightly harder feat. Fenech has trained high level fighters before. If he can get Jarvis to world level, we can add him to the list. There is a lot of potential good young fighters in Australia right now, more than I can ever remember before. We may be on the verge of an Aussie renaissance in the sport in the next few years.
Billy Dib (43-4, 24 KOs) UD8 Phum Kunmat (24-23-2, 15 KOs), lightweights – Australia
Somehow, Billy Dib had a world title for three fights starting in 2011. He lost it in a dreadful fight to Evgeny Gradovich and then again lost the rematch. In 2015, he was swatted away in three in what was hopefully his final title bid against Takashi Miura. Dib is not pleasant to watch as a fighter and I am not excited to even as much as write a paragraph about him. I literally just copied and pasted that from the last time he popped up. I am not going to seek out this fight, if video even exists.
Igor Mikhalkin (21-1, 9 KOs) UD12 Doudou Ngumbu (37-8, 14 KOs), light heavyweights – France
Russian light heavyweight Igor Mikhalkin won surprisingly easy against undefeated South African Thomas Oosthuizen in May, launching himself comfortably into the middle of the division. On paper this was a step down, but it was also a rematch of both a 2009 majority decision and 2013 split decision win. Maybe those were controversial or something, or maybe he just really wanted to finally get a clear one on the Congolese fighter finally. The Russian holds the IBO belt too, so they could have ordered this I guess. I don’t follow them, nor did I know much of Mikhalkin back when they fought the first two times. Either way, this was a clean win.
Michel Soro (31-2, 21 KOs) KO3 Ivan Montero (20-3, 8 KOs), junior middleweights – France
In his first fight back from his super narrow loss to red hot Argentinian prospect Brian Carlos Castano in a secondary title fight, Michel Soro picked up a win back at that European level of competition that he is clearly better than. I certainly get a fight like this coming off a loss, but at the same time this is what Soro was doing prior to the Castano fight as well. Soro is a really talented fighter and I wish he’d leave the really empty French scene. He destroyed Glen Tapia before that was the cool thing to do, for example. He also nearly stopped Antoine Douglas on ShoBox and would have won the fight had he done anything in the first five or so rounds. Soro is now 30 and time has begun ticking. I suspect he will just take comfortable fights in France until someone names him mandatory again though, unfortunately.
Mohammed Rabii (4-0, 3 KOs) KO1 Laszlo Szilvai (7-2, 4 KOs), junior middleweights – France
2015 World Amateur Gold Medalist Mohammed Rabii of Morroco also picked up bronze in the Rio 2016 Olympic games. Needless to say, the 24 year old is a major professional prospect on amateur resume alone. He passes the eye test too as a pretty vicious looking come forward puncher. Rabii mercilessly rips the body and scored this finish on one of those body shots. We have a promising, world level prospect here in my opinion.
Ramon Alvarez (25-6-3, 16 KOs) UD10 Johnny Navarrete (33-11-2, 15 KOs), middleweights – Mexico
Canelo’s brother, Ramon, at least somewhat re-stabilized his career on the Mexican domestic level with this Azteca main event win. After getting embarrassed by being blown out in two by the thoroughly mediocre Omar Chavez in April, things really bottomed out even further in September when he only managed a draw in what was meant to be a get well fight against Navarrette. Having won the rematch, the 31 year old lesser Alvarez can once again move forward with his career, but he will never rise anywhere near world level. I only include him as a sibling to a star curiosity.
Anthony Yigit (21-0-1, 7 KOs) UD12 Joe Hughes (15-3-1, 6 KOs), junior welterweights – England
Very underrated European titleholder Anthony Yigit easily outboxed Joe Hughes on the road in the UK. Yigit fought in a ton of international amateur tournaments and also won a fight in the 2012 London games for his native Sweden. With this win over a solid British domestic fighter and his last successful outing against Sandor Martin, Yigit now has consecutive quality European wins that were reasonably easy nights for him. I don’t know if the Swede has that level of athleticism necessary to climb all the way to the top of the sport, but the 26 year old is a skilled fighter being completely overlooked on the international scene right now.
Angel Acosta (17-1, 17 KOs) TKO10 Juan Alejo (24-5-1, 14 KOs), WBO light flyweight title – New York
This fight off television on the Cotto/Ali undercard was originally supposed to be a title eliminator. When elite light flyweight Kosei Tanaka announced he was vacating and moving up, it was elevated to full title fight at the very last minute. Accordingly, Angel Acosta and his perfect KO percentage in wins is now a world titleholder. With Tanaka out of the division, it is once again wide open in terms of having a top fighter. Maybe with the only man to defeat him now gone, the power punching Puerto Rican can begin to stake his claim. This win over a top fifteen guy in Alejo is a good start.
Friday, December 1st
Tyrone Brunson (26-6-2, 24 KOs) RTD8 Manny Woods (16-7-1, 6 KOs), junior middleweights – Pennsylvania
Limited power puncher Tyrone Brunson came up hyped as a monster puncher with a perfect knockout percentage until he ran into Carson Jones in 2009 on Showtime. That loss sent his career into a free fall and Brunson only won two fights between the end of 2009 through 2016. Yet, earlier this career he revitalized his career by stopping a faded Kermit Cintron in June. This win makes Tyrone Brunson improbably 3-0 in 2017 against fighters with positive records. Who knew?
Kyrone Davis (13-1, 5 KOs) UD8 Jaime Barboza (19-13, 9 KOs), middleweights – Pennsylvania
Kyrone Davis is a reasonably talented middleweight who I felt got the short end of the stick against PBC house prospect Junior Castillo last April. Davis deserved that decision in my view. I don’t think he is any sort of major prospect by any means, but I will continue to follow the Delaware based 23 year old for the time being. He shows a solid ring IQ in there in terms of positioning and range.
Omar Douglas (18-2, 13 KOs) KO1 Isaias Martin Gonzales (22-10, 14 KOs), junior lightweights – Pennsylvania
Rounding out a really solid card for a regional show, Omar Douglas finally returned to the ring following his April loss to Edner Cherry in a PBC on FS1 main event. That was a fight Douglas should have won, but the cards that came back were pretty terrible and went to Cherry. A shot of Douglas leaning despondent over the ropes from that night is still burned into my memory. Previously Douglas had lost more fairly to Javier Fortuna, meaning technically came into this six round tune up on a two fight losing streak. That reality is no longer. Here Douglas scored the easy first round stoppage he should have and now can look for a bigger fight.
Toka Kahn Clary (24-1, 17 KOs) RTD7 John Vincent Moralde (19-1, 10 KOs), featherweights – Rhode Island
Once beaten prospect Toka Kahn Clary is probably Evander Holyfield’s top fighter for Real Deal Promotions in terms of being closest to real contention. He got the main event here against unknown but unbeaten Filipino Moralde. After a competitive first two rounds, Clary began to take over in the third. The fifth through the seventh were pretty one sided. Still, I was at least a little surprised to see Moralde quit when he did, though it wasn’t a bad decision as he just wasn’t going to win this fight. Clary was previously a Top Rank prospect, but they dropped him after a surprise first round knockout loss to another Filipino in journeyman Jhon Gemino on a UniMás card last September.
Thursday, November 30th
Manuel Avila (23-1, 8 KOs) UD8 Diuhl Olguin (12-8-3, 9 KOs), featherweights – Maryland
Manuel Avila was a minor Golden Boy prospect being brought up mostly on their small Estrella TV series before they fed him to the wolves so to speak when the promotional outfit stuck him in with JoJo Diaz on the Cinco De Mayo Canelo v Chavez Jr PPV. Predictably, Diaz and his serious amateur pedigree routed Avila on the cards. I don’t know that Manuel Avila can ever be a world title contender as he just isn’t the athlete or puncher that that usually requires, but here he returned with a get well win on the WatchESPN.com preliminary portion of Lamont Roach’s Golden Boy on ESPN card without issue.
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Monday, November 27th
Sergey Kuzmin (11-0-1, 8 KOs) TDr3 Amir Mansour (23-2-2, 16 KOs), heavyweights – Russia
This is the single most disappointing result of the week. As an amateur, Kuzmin had strong success at the European championships, picking up a gold and silver in 2011 and 2013, but he fell short at the world championships and never stood a shot at an Olympic bid in Russia’s increasingly full amateur system. Basically, Kuzmin is a known prospect that has been both fighting in Russia and in the states. Amir Mansour at 45 is a well traveled fringe contender whose level is known. To have this end before we can really get a read on Kuzmin is frustrating. For what we did see, Sergey had a good round and a half, then Mansour started to take over. Neither guy was dominating though. The fight ended on a huge head clash that ended with both fighters suffering bad cuts. Mansour seemed hurt by it too.
Eduard Troyanovsky (27-1, 24 KOs) KO1 Carlos Manuel Portillo (21-1, 16 KOs), junior welterweights – Russia
When Portillo broke Czar Amonsot’s long winning streak by early stoppage in October, he emerged from no where to earn this WBA eliminator against recent titleholder Eduard Troyanovsky abroad in Russia. It didn’t end well. About two minutes into the fight the crude Paraguayan lunged into a fade away right hand that had him all but out and face first on the canvas. He managed to raise to his knees, but not all the way to his feet and was counted out. This was Troyanovsky’s second fight back from losing his title by being quickly iced by then unnknown Julius Indongo. Apparently the WBA’s plan is to have Rances Barthelemy and Kiryl Relikh rematch and then to have the winner meet Troyanovsky. They will probably first put the belt on the winner of that rematch first.
Aleksei Papin (9-0, 8 KOs) KO1 Ismayl Sillah (25-5, 19 KOs), cruiserweights & Alexey Egorov (4-0, 3 KOs) TKO4 Andrei Kniazev (16-6, 9 KOs), cruiserweights – Russia
A pair of solid cruiserweight prospects were in action on the Kuzmin and Troyanovsky card in Russia. Papin is a 30 year old former kickboxer who was in pretty tough here for his experience as a professional and lack of real amateur pedigree. Yet, he prevailed big with with a beautiful series of left hooks that first hurt and then put out cold an opponent in Sillah who had been in with some good fighters. Egorov had much more of an amateur pedigree at the Russian national and more importantly European level, winning gold at the 2013 Euros for example. Neither of these two are absolute blue chippers, but both are promising and in a good situation. The Russian fight scene generally does well developing its prospects.
