Welcome to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column in which I go over all the even remotely prominent results not otherwise covered by separate articles. This week we have a Latin Snake, the return of a flyweight legend, 2016 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist Tony Yoka, and much more.
Note: My apologies for missing last week. I was on vacation with the family and couldn’t quite work it in as this is the most time consuming article I write. There is nothing on the schedule that should cause that to happen again in the near future.
Saturday, April 7th
Sergio Mora (29-5-2, 9 KOs) SD8 Alfredo Angulo (24-7, 20 KOs), super middleweights – Nevada
Thanks to PBC having no outlet for their pre-television undercards, there was no way to watch this one without being live. From the mouths of those who were there in person, this was by all accounts an entertaining fight that probably should have been unanimous for Sergio Mora. This was both men’s first fight since mid-2016. Mora was coming off two losses to Danny Jacobs while Angulo lost last time out on a lower level. The Latin Snake will certainly pop back up on a televised PBC card at some point, but it is hard picturing Angulo ever mattering again going forward.
Xavier Martinez (11-0, 7 KOs) TKO2 Jairo Fernandez Vargas (6-4, 5 KOs), junior lightweights – Nevada
Again I have no video here to work with because PBC is the worst, but I have seen Martinez a few times now already. He’s a good prospect. The 20 year old moves his hands really well in combination and seems to have a solid ring IQ in there. I don’t have much to say about a fight I didn’t see of course, but I would definitely like to see Martinez return to PBC on FS1 for his next few fights.
Rodolfo Gomez Jr (13-4-1, 9 KOs) TKO8 Ricardo Mayorga (32-11-1, 26 KOs), super middleweights – Texas
A fat forty five year old Ricardo Mayorga was knocked out by a regional journeyman in Texas this weekend. There is a clip of the finish on Youtube if you care. I don’t.
Karim Mayfield (24-4-1, 11 KOs) UD8 Gaku Takahashi (16-9-1, 8 KOs), welterweights – California
Tricky Bay Area welterweight gatekeeper Karim Mayfield picked up a decision win at home in San Francisco this weekend. Mayfield is 37 and definitely on the downside of his career, but he is still an awkward out on the right night as evidenced by his robbery loss to unbeaten prospect Bakhtiyar Eyubov in a thrilling bout two fights ago. You might look at Mayfield’s ledger and determine that he isn’t worth paying attention to, but the three of the four fights he lost (Dulorme, Tayloy, and Eyubov) could have easily been scored for him. He’s crafty and has the ability to fight multiple styles.
Pongsaklek Wonjongkam (91-5-2, 47 KOs) UD8 Manot Comput (18-20, 11 KOs), super bantamweights – Thailand
Longtime Thai flyweight titleholder last lost his belt in 2012 to Sonny Boy Jaro by stoppage. He was upset in a bid to win it back about two years later, this time by even quicker stoppage. Wonjongkam fought three times after that before hanging up the gloves. Yet, despite the all too typical ending, he is in my humble opinion one of the top ten greatest flyweights of all time. He was the true, lineal champion at the weight twice and defended that status seventeen times while defeating a number of men who had held world titles. With all that said, he is also 40 years old now and was certainly shot when he left the game five years ago. His hope here is to get a few wins so the Japanese boxing commission will approve a money making rematch with popular local star Koki Kameda as apparently both men are broke. When they first tried to put the fight together, it was turned down due to Wongjongkam’s inactivity. Pongsaklek won their first fight in 2010, but I can’t see him fairing well in a rematch at this point. According to the scoring here he barely won this one even.
Friday, April 6th
Hector Tanajara (13-0, 6 KOs) UD8 Hector Suarez (12-6-1, 6 KOs), junior lightweights – California
Golden Boy prospect Hector Tanajara was in action on their small, local LA Fight Club Live series on EstrellaTV Friday night. He looked a little more fluid here, but I am really only covering the 21 year old because he is being brought up by a major promoter. Tanajara is flat footed, slow, and doesn’t hit all that hard. He is also pretty easy to hit himself. Matchmaking has kept him unbeaten as he slowly improves, but I just don’t see a very high ceiling here.
Damien Hooper (14-1, 9 KOs) TKO9 Renold Quinlan (12-3, 8 KOs), light heavyweights & Jai Opetaia (15-0, 12 KOs) TKO2 Lukas Paszkowsky (9-2, 3 KOs), cruiserweights & Tim Tszyu (8-0, 6 KOs) TKO5 Ruben Webster (8-1), middleweights – Australia
A trio of important Australian prospects were in action on Friday. 2012 Olympian Damien Hooper was for a while considered a bust of a pro when he was knocked out in the first round of what looked like a mismatch in his favor in 2014, but two consecutive wins over quality fighters in Umar Salamov and now Quinlan have entirely shifted that view. He’s still only 26. 22 year old Samoan-Australian cruiserweight Jai Opetaia was also in the 2012 games, albeit with less fanfare. He is a really smooth looking natural athlete in the ring as a young pro already though. Probably most importantly financially for the Australian scene is Tim Tszyu, 23 year old son of legendary star Kostya Tszyu. I didn’t take young Tim seriously at first, but he is really bring sharp, straight, accurate shots to his game with a measure of quickness. All three of these men could very well develop into world level contenders from what I am seeing. The future is very bright for Australian boxing right now.
Patrick Teixeira (28-1, 22 KOs) UD10 Davi Eliasquevici (14-5-1, 11 KOs), junior middleweights – Brazil
Patrick Teixeira was given too much to handle when he was matched with Curtis Stevens on 2016’s Canelo Alvarez versus Amir Khan PPV and was finished in two. That was a huge step up in one fight. Plus, the Brazilian isn’t a middleweight either. Teixeira rebounded nicely with a near shutout win over fringe contender Andrew Hernandez in July but hadn’t fought since until taking this fight back at home in Brazil. Assuming he is still with them, I’d like to see Teixera get a more mild fight on Golden Boy’s ESPN series. Looking over their roster, Yoshihiro Kamegai would tell us more about the Brazilian’s potential to compete at a higher level.
Simon Kean (14-0, 13 KOs) KO5 Ignacio Esparza (21-3,14 KOs), heavyweights & Mathieu Germain (14-0, 8 KOs) UD8 Miguel Zamudio (40-11-1, 25 KOs), junior welterweights – Quebec
2016 Olympian Simon Kean continued his slow March towards building a menacing record with a win over a very overweight Mexican foe in Montreal. Kean can certainly punch, but he’s stiff in there and seems to lack a natural sort of athleticism. I am not super high on his prospects. He is tentatively said to meet Adam Braidwood next which is a little more interesting at least. Though far from the world scene, Braidwood is one of the better heavyweights in Canada. Unfortunately, if you know his name it is likely because he is the man who delivered the fatal blows to ex-UFC fighter Tim Hague last June. Mathieu Germain is a local product starting to get a fair bit of hype in the great fight city of Montreal. He looks like a solid if unspectacular prospect, though this is the first time I’ve watched him fight.
Tony Yoka (4-0, 3 KOs) KO5 Cyril Leonet (13-10-3, 4 KOs), heavyweights & Nordine Oubaali (14-0, 11 KOs) KO2 Luis Melendez (47-12-1, 34 KOs), super bantamweights & Souleymane Cissokho (6-0, 5 KOs) UD10 Jose de Jesus Macias (23-9-2, 12 KOs), junior middleweights – France
France, alongside Australia, is a country trending upward in the sport. For one it is an extremely active scene in recent years, but more importantly there are some nice French prospects on the rise. Tony Yoka is by far the biggest name of the bunch thanks to his 2016 Olympic super heavyweight gold medal. Granted that should be on Joe Joyce instead, but Yoka can’t help the judging in his fights. The 25 year old has everything you’d look for in a heavyweight prospect too. He is 6’5″, features an 82″ reach, and moves with a real fluidity in the ring. I suspect they’ll continue to bring him up slow for a while as 25 is much younger at heavyweight than it normally is in the sport, but the tools are there and the tentative nerves shown in his first two pro fights are quickly fading away. Oubaali and Cissokho are both big time prospects with major amateur credentials as well. Cissokho won bronze in Rio while Oubaali competed and won fights in both the 2008 and 2012 games. He beat Rau’shee Warren and bowed out to Zou Shiming and Michael Conlan in extremely close fights, for example.
Jhonny Gonzalez (66-10, 54 KOs) UD12 Marlyn Cabrera (24-2, 11 KOs), junior lightweights & Lindolfo Delgado (4-0, 4 KOs) KO4 Juan Carlos Chavira (9-15, 3 KOs), junior welterweights – Mexico
Venerable veteran of the sport Jhonny Gonzalez continues to prove that he is still a full head above the Mexican domestic scene with another dominant win, his eighth in a row. Unfortunately, he and his team are apparently using the high regional level success to target Miguel Berchelt. That is a fight I can definitely see happening, but I don’t want to. Even though Jhonny can still fight at a pretty high level at 36, he will get knocked out there. I’d rather see him in with another still winning Mexican former titleholder like Cristian Mijares. Lindolfo Delgado fought for Mexico in the 2016 games and is a prospect I am pretty high on. He can get loose with his right hand sometimes, but he is a sharp, accurate puncher with solid ringcraft. Boxrec mistakenly has him losing this fight as of now if you’re comparing records, but he definitely won on a beautiful straight shot in the fourth to end the fight.
Wednesday, April 4th
Mark John Yap (29-12, 14 KOs) UD12 Takafumi Nakajima (29-10-1, 13 KOs), bantamweights – Japan
After going 11-12 from March of 2010 to November of 2014, Mark John Yap has righted the ship in a big way in Japan. The Filipino has now won ten straight in what is traditionally the harder country to fight in. This was also Yap’s second defense of his OPBF regional belt. On top of all this, despite having 41 fights and having been a pro for over 11 years now, Mark John Yap is also still only 29 years old. Bantamweight is a particularly shallow division right now so I am sure Yap will get a bigger opportunity sooner rather than later.
