Ghana triumphed in Philadelphia. After a rough start, Isaac Dogboe triumphed in eleven over Jessie Magdaleno to become the WBO super bantamweight titleholder. It was an ascendant performance for a rising star in the sport. Bryant Jennings and Jesse Hart also picked up wins on the undercard.
Defending WBO super bantamweight titleholder Jessie Magdaleno (25-1, 18 KOs) could hardly have asked for a better first round. With Isaac Dogboe (19-0, 13 KOs) attacking him along the ropes, Magdaleno unleashed beautiful hooks in response to put the Ghanaian down. Dogboe got up, but he was hurt again before the round ended. He did better in the second though. Both men did a lot of posturing early, but it was Dogboe’s aggression late from which the good work came.
Jessie did well in a back and forth third round, but Dogboe responded with excellent aggression in the fourth. The real story came early in the fifth though. A simply massive right hand from Dogboe dropped Magdaleno. He went down extremely hard. Yet, surprisingly he got up in decent shape. He kept his guard up high and survived the round with his guard up and without a ton of drama thereafter. Undeterred, Dogboe just kept ripping the parts of the body available along the way in an even more one sided round than the first.
After another good round for the challenger in the sixth, Magadaleno came out aggressive in the seventh. It didn’t take long for a big shot to back him off though. Jessie did get some work in, but the much more effective work came from Isaac along the ropes yet again. I still saw the challenger cleanly landing the more impactful shots in the eighth too despite the pace slowing. The defending titleholder used his movement to shift the momentum in the ninth a bit though. He boxed pretty well to take the first round on my card in some time.
Dogboe’s aggression and effectiveness returned in the tenth. He appeared to buzz Magdaleno at the round’s halfway point and Jessie responded similarly as to how he did in the fifth. He laid on the ropes and played macho tough guy while getting beat up. The eleventh was the culmination of the fight. Dogboe just kept beating on the then titleholder. He put Magdaleno down twice to finish the fight. The first was unfortunately aided by a low blow, but the second was simply the last of the fight in Jessie Magdaleno falling out of him.
Isaac Dogboe is now your WBO super bantamweight titleholder. He also did well for him in the post-fight interview. The new champion is a surprisingly eloquent speaker. He acknowledged he was complacent in the first and thanked Magdaleno for teaching him that lesson. He also apologized for some of the more controversial things said pre-fight.
The tripleheader’s middle feature brought some early drama as heavily favored top super middleweight contender and recent title challenger Jesse Hart (23-1, 19 KOs) was clearly hurt at the very end of the first round by underdog Demond Nicholson (18-3-1, 17 KOs). Hart had dominated the opening frame up until its final punch, but he ended up wobbling back to his corner. He stabilized in the second despite an early charge by Nicholson. In the third he scored a bogus early knockdown that should have been ruled a slip before really putting Demond down later in the frame on a great right hand.
From there the fight settled into a rhythm for a few rounds. Jesse would do most of the work and land well, but sometimes he would also smother his own shots. Demond didn’t punch enough to be considered for winning really any rounds. He would land a nice shot here and there though when Jesse got too confident.
Things got weird in the seventh. Hart hurt Nicholson with a nice right hand and Nicholson nearly went down in a squatting position. When the top contender moved in to attack, Nicholson put his gloves down. That should have been a knockdown, but instead increasingly incompetent Pennsylvania referee Shawn Clark just wiped his gloves to send him back out. Jesse Hart attacked immediately and Nicholson went back down. Clark counted him on his knees until eight and then… kept telling him to get up? When he did, he waved the fight off. Do we have a referee who doesn’t know how to count to ten? I have no idea what that was. The right result was reached in the end, but what a bizarre way to get there.
Post-fight a worked up Jesse Hart argued that Demond Nicholson quit. I agree. He then went on a rant calling out all the 168 lb titleholders. Well, he tried to anyway. Somewhat comically, he doesn’t seem to know who any of them are other than the man who gave him his only loss in Gilberto Ramirez.
Bryant Jennings (23-2, 13 KOs) picked up the expected win in the opener over fellow Philly fighter Joey Dawejko (19-5-4, 11 KOs), but he didn’t necessarily impress like he might have wanted to. Dawejko came in career best shape and showed some real skill early on the inside. Jennings had an absurd reach advantage of more than a foot, but he let the fight take place largely in a phone booth. I scored three of the first five rounds for the heavy underdog. He unleashed a particularly pretty sequences of left hands in the third round punctuated by a solid uppercut. Jennings adjusted, however, at the same time as Dawejko tired and slowed his work rate in the second half of the fight. He began working from the outside and made a much easier night for himself. Other than a spirited rally in the first half of the final round, Bryant Jennings shut Joey Dawejko out in the second half of the fight from range. I scored it 97-93 Jennings and official scores came back 98-92 across the board.
