Welcome to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column in which I go over the week’s results not otherwise covered in separate articles. This week we have Zab Judah, a Holyfield card, a Mayweather card, and more.
On the Radar Results
Linares and Matthysse get uneventful wins on HBO
Usyk and Briedis shine together in Latvia
Under the Radar Fight Results
Saturday, January 17th
Yves Ngabu (19-0, 14 KOs) RTD3 Geoffrey Battelo (32-6, 28 KOs), cruiserweights – Belgium
Reigning European cruiserweight titleholder and 29 year old Belgian prospect Yves Ngabu successfully defended his title at home on Saturday. Battelo and his Rocky Balboa nose had a considerable size advantage in this fight and he used to reasonably well for most of the first round, but after that Ngabu took over. I don’t think Yves is a likely future titleholder, but he’s got enough to at least get a chance on that stage. In particular he presses forward behind a solid guard and possesses a real sneaky counter right hand. He needs to work on turning the left hook over though.
Zab Judah (44-9, 30 KOs) UD10 Noel Mejia Rincon (21-14-1, 12 KOs), welterweights – Alberta
Yeah, Zab Judah fought this weekend. After a year off, the 40 year old not only returned to the sport, but he did so very quietly in Calgary up north of the border. At this point Zab’s star power is entirely gone, apparently. This fight is available on Youtube and has been for a couple days, but it has garnered barely over a hundred views at this point. I don’t have plans to sit down and watch the whole thing as he is never going to matter again and I have more important things to do, but I did jump around and watch a few minutes here and there. Zab is still quick in the way Roy Jones Jr is still kind of quick with his hands, but he can only throw one or two shots at a time and has lost all fluidity. It isn’t pretty, but it is enough to easily win on this level.
Emmanuel Tagoe (28-1, 14 KOs) TKO10 Fernando David Saucedo (61-7-3, 10 KOs), lightweights – Ghana
Emmanuel Tagoe is one of the better fighters in Ghana, arguably the best fight country in Africa. He is a little crude and fights with this wide open style that might get him lit up against world class competition, but he is obviously a good athlete and is a creative puncher. With that said, this result is a farce. In the tenth round of a fight full of strange antics, a combination of a Tagoe punch and Saucedo’s momentum caused the Argentinian to turn his back to the fight along the ropes. Tagoe landed not one, but two blatant shots to the back of Saucedo’s head in the moment. Saucedo went down, probably out of surprise, but bounced back up. For some reason, the referee stopped the fight and awarded Emmanuel Tagoe a TKO victory. If that moment was to end the fight, Saucedo should have won by disqualification. I don’t even know why it was stopped, however, as he seemed relatively fine. A two point deduction for an intentional foul also could have worked. Yet, instead he gets a stoppage win. Talk about home field advantage. This was in defense of the IBO belt if anyone cares.
Otto Wallin (19-0, 13 KOs) KO3 Srdan Govedarica (6-6, 5 KOs), heavyweights & Filip Hrgovic (3-0, 3 KOs) TKO4 Tom Little (10-5, 3 KOs), heavyweights – Latvia
A pair of relevant heavyweight bouts were featured on the Usyk/Briedis World Boxing Super Series card. Unbeaten 27 year old Swedish heavyweight prospect Otto Wallin picked up a stay busy TKO win and Croation Olympic bronze medalist Filip Hrgovic fought his third career fight. Of the two, Hrgovic is definitely the one to watch. He generally fell short against the absolute elites of the recent amateur scene, but he still has a ton of high level experience. His best attribute is his offense at range, but the 25 year old does need to work on maintaining it for the sake of his defense too. Wallin will likely peak at European level as I just don’t see any real level of athleticism.
Marcelino Lopez (34-2-1, 19 KOs) KO5 Breidis Prescott (30-12, 22 KOs), welterweights – California
31 year old Marcelino Lopez is having an unlikely career breakthrough right now. Last April he was brought in by Golden Boy to be Michael Perez’s opponent on one of their ESPN2 shows. He put up exactly the fight they wanted him to by being competitive in clear defeat. It made sense then for him to be brought back to be the same sort of opponent for the return of Pablo Cesar Cano. Unfortunately for Golden Boy, Lopez didn’t comply this time as he upset Cano via second round knockout. Here the west coast promotional outfit kept him busy on Saturday’s HBO undercard by feeding him former one hit wonder Breidis Prescott. Lopez delivered with a pair of fifth round knockdowns that led to the stoppage.
Daquan Arnett (17-1, 9 KOs) UD6 Osbaldo Gonzales (6-2, 4 KOs), junior middleweights – California
Daquan Arnett is a reasonably talented 25 year old junior middleweight who has been absolutely plagued by inactivity over the last couple years. He is still young enough to rebound, but I don’t know if he is necessarily a world level talent. Regardless, that isn’t why I am covering his fight. I simply want to encourage anyone and everyone to go to youtube and watch him drop Miguel Zuniga in 2015. It is one of my favorite shots because of Zuniga’s extremely ill timed taunt right before it.
Sharif Bogere (31-1, 2o KOs) UD10 Arturo Santos Reyes (19-9, 5 KOs), lightweights – Nevada
Sharif Bogere has made himself the forgotten man at lightweight, or else his team has anyway. A very narrow and somewhat questionable 2011 win over Ray Beltran catapulted him into a title shot against Richar Abril a few fights later in 2013. He lost that and has fought nine times since, winning eight with a no contest. Yet, none of those fights came anywhere near the top of the division. The little name value Bogere had four years ago is now long gone. Time will tell if Mayweather Promotions can correct this.
Sanjarbek Rakhmanov (10-0-1, 5 KOs) TKO2 Hylon Williams Jr (16-5-1, 3 KOs), welterweights – Nevada
Sanjarbek Rakhmanov was a pretty hyped Mayweather Promotions signing from Uzbekistan. He was billed as a power puncher to watch, so I looked forward to getting to see him on ShoBox in May of 2016. Unfortunately, what I saw on that card was a far too crude brawler with little skill to speak of. If he had power, he didn’t have the technique to use it and it was irrelevant. I didn’t think he deserved the draw he got that night. After that, I wrote him off and stopped paying attention. Hylon Williams isn’t much more than a journeyman, really, but he has been in with Jason Litzau, Rances Barthelemy, and Yuriorkis Gamboa. None of them stopped him, let alone blew him out early. I guess it is time to give Rakhmanov another chance.
Friday, January 26th
Felix Alvarado (31-2, 27 KOs) TKO4 Sebastian Sanchez (12-9, 5 KOs), flyweights – Nicaragua
Things are looking up for the Alvarado brothers. Rene is coming off his upset win over Denis Shafikov and Felix just keeps knocking out whoever is put in front of him back home. This was just a stay busy fight as Felix Alvarado won the right to be Donnie Niete’s mandatory challenger back in October. Previously the Argentinian has lost two title shots, one at flyweight to Juan Carlos Reveco and one fight before that at light flyweight to Kazuto Ioka. Those probably came too young, however, and the 28 year old is in his prime now. He is 13-0 with 12 stoppages since that 2014 loss to Reveco.
Steven Ortiz (8-0, 3 KOs) TKO2 Joshua Davis (11-3, 5 KOs), lightweights & Jaron Ennis (18-0, 16 KOs) TKO4 Gustavo Garibay (13-10-2, 5 KOs), junior middleweights – Pennsylvania
Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Promotions put on this nice little card in Philadelphia on Friday under the moniker “Real Deal Showcase Series 1.” 24 year old Stephen Ortiz was mostly a regional amateur, but he did sport a win over Rau’shee Warren. Jaron Ennis was a much more prominent amateur and a real Olympic hopeful, but he fell just short in the box offs against major prospect Gary Antuanne Russell. These two seem to be the young company’s main two prospects. Unfortunately, this wasn’t televised and I do not have video to provide any insight on the fights themselves.
