The first American televised boxing event of 2018 is in the books. In the main event, Emerging women’s boxing star Claressa Shields picked up her fourth win in defense of her pair of super middleweight titles. Jesse Hernandez and Shohjahon Ergashev also picked up wins on the undercard.
Unbeaten middleweight Christina Hammer and her two belts were in the audience to watch Claressa Shields (4-0, 2 KOs) outpoint Tori Nelson (17-1-3, 2 KOs) in the show’s main event. On paper this fight did not look to be competitive and it wasn’t. I am far from being an expert in women’s boxing, but Nelson is 41 years old. That told me what I needed to know. Tori did her best to survive and tried to win in spurts, but she was never in this. All three cards came back a shut out along with mine. The idea now is for Shields to drop down to meet Hammer for the middleweight belts in a bit of a female superfight.
Fresh off an impressive pair of ShoBox wins over unbeaten fighters, Jessie Hernandez (11-1, 7 KOs) came into the co-main event a heavy favorite over Ernesto Garza (9-3, 5 KOs). As usual, the Forth Worth brawler refused to use his considerable length for the weight and engaged in an inside brawl. This made for a fun fight, but it also caused some drama early. After a decent first round that could have went either way, Garza surprisingly put Hernandez down in the second round on a sharp inside left hand.
Unfortunately for the Michigan fighter, Hernandez seemed motivated in the third to turn things around. He upped the urgency and dug the body well, swinging the fight in his favor. Garza also seemed to be tiring fast. From there, Hernandez basically began banking rounds on his pressure and body work. Garza was there, sometimes worked with volume, and closely contested a couple rounds, but his shots didn’t seem to have much on them after the first frames. The scores came back split, but I thought the right man in Jessie Hernandez got the win. The Showtime commentators also had it a split decision for Hernandez between the three of them.
The star of this show in retrospect was found in the opener. Shohjahon Ergashev (11-0, 11 KOs) of Uzbekistan and Ohio’s Sonny Frederickson (18-1, 12 KOs) looked on paper like evenly matched prospects taking a step up against one another. It wasn’t evenly matched. From the opening bell to when the fight was called in the third, Ergashev put a beating on Frederickson on route to keeping his perfect knockout percentage. The Uzbekistani prospect showed impressive angles in launching his left and landed at will. He also showed a flair for entertainment in his taunts, at one point calling Frederickson in as a matador. Ergashev is one to watch.
