Welcome to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column in which I take a look at all the even remotely prominent results of the week that I hadn’t already covered. Unfortunately, the boxing year doesn’t really kick off for 2018 until Saturday’s IBF title doubleheader on Showtime and I only have a couple fights to go over yet again. That finally changes next week.
On the Radar Results
Shields, Hernandez, and Ergashev win on ShoBox
Under the Radar Fight Results
Saturday, January 13th
Rikki Naito (19-2, 7 KOs) TKO9 Jeffrey Arienza (16-7-1, 7 KOs), junior welterweights – Japan
Junior welterweight fringe contender Rikki Naito picked up a stoppage win over his Filipino foe Saturday at home in Japan. Naito got Arienza out of there two rounds earlier than recent title challenger Akihiro Kondo did too, so that is something. Naito is not really a world scene threat, but he is a good Japanese domestic scene fighter with his losses being to Kenichi Ogawa holding a win over Masayuki Ito. Unfortunately, there are rarely good domestic fights to be made up at junior welterweight in Japan. Given the presence of the aforementioned Kondo and rising prospects in Hikoro Okada and Koki Inoue, however, that may be slowly changing.
Friday, January 12th
Alexey Zubov (17-1, 9 KOs) MD6 Lamont Capers (8-11-3), heavyweights – New York
Alexey Zubov is more or less a busted non-prospect, but there is little to cover this week so I tossed him in. Coming into 2016 Zubov was a decent looking cruiserweight prospect with experience fighting both in Russia and stateside. He put on a pretty dreadful performance in a ShoBox loss to Constantin Bejenaru, however, and his stock went out of value. While Bejenaru has proven himself to be a pretty good fighter since, Zubov is still struggling a bit. This was his second consecutive six rounder against really low level competition where he hasn’t managed to get all three judges to score it for him. Plus, they’ve been technically heavyweight fights and that won’t help. I haven’t been seeking these fights out so maybe it is just bad judging, but I doubt it based on what I have seen before.
Bakhtiyar Eyubov (13-0, 11 KOs) NC1 Maurice Chalmers (14-13-1, 8 KOs), welterweights – New York
Kazakhstani power puncher Bakhitiyar Eyubov was a hyped ShoBox prospect in 2016 too, but on a higher level than Zubov. While he hasn’t lost, he probably should have against Karim Mayfield in August. The veteran really exposed his limited footwork and defense that night as the two engaged in what was simply a gem of a fight. It is a shame it didn’t get more play on Fight of the Year lists, but its relatively low ShoBox profile and controversial decision didn’t help. This was Eyubov’s third fight back since the Mayfield fight. All three have been against really low level competition, but he didn’t get the easy win in this one as reportedly an accidental headbutt called an end to the fight in the first round.
