Welcome to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column in which I go over all even remotely prominent results not otherwise covered in separate articles. This week we have a new unified titleholder in Japan, an American Olympic medalist, a 47 year old still trucking along, and much more. It was a busy week in the sport.
Sunday, May 20th
Hekkie Budler (32-3, 10 KOs) UD12 Ryoichi Taguchi (27-3-2, 12 KOs), WBA & IBF Light Flyweight Titles & Hiroto Kyoguchi (10-0, 7 KOs) UD12 Vince Paras (13-1, 11 KOs), WBA minimumweight title & Nihito Arakawa (31-6-2, 18 KOs) MD12 Rimar Metuda (12-3-1, 7 KOs), lightweights – Tokyo, Japan
30 year old South African Hekkie Budler is now both a unified titleholder and a two division titleholder following this upset win over Ryoichi Taguchi in Japan. I will note that I very narrowly scored this fight for Taguchi 114-113, but it was a super close one. Budler started out on fire and controlled the fight’s first half. He really roughed the Japanese defending titleholder in the fourth. He faded in the second half of the fight, however, and Taguchi’s craft largely took over from about the sixth on in my view. He scored a twelfth round knockdown to steal the fight on my card, but surprisingly at home it wasn’t enough. I have no problem with Budler’s win though as I had it as close as can be. On the undercard, Hiroto Kyoguchi survived some early adversity to outpoint his Filipino challenger wide in defense of his minimumweight belt and action fighter Nihito Arakawa was held to a draw against a regional opponent. Arakawa isn’t even really a fringe contender on the world scene at this point, but you might remember him from his crazy 2013 war with Omar Figueroa Jr stateside.
Saturday, May 19th
Matias Rueda (30-1, 27 KOs) KO3 Fabian Oscar Orozco (27-8-3, 9 KOs), lightweights – Cordoba, Argentina
Two summers ago in July of 2016, Argentinian regional fighter Matias Rueda brought his gaudy, but empty record stateside to challenger for a featherweight belt then newly held by Oscar Valdez. He was dismissed emphatically inside two rounds. He has continued on back down in Argentina running over local competition. At 30, there is plenty of time for him to get another shot doing the same thing he did to get the first one. It is likely a way off as he isn’t fighting for any minor titles again yet though. He probably won’t do any better if or when it comes, but to be fair he got caught early and didn’t really get a chance to show his stuff so we don’t know for sure.
Jason Moloney (17-0, 14 KOs) RTD6 Kohei Kono (33-12-1, 14 KOs), bantamweights & Andrew Moloney (17-0, 10 KOs) UD10 Richard Claveras (18-4-2, 15 KOs), super flyweights – Melbourne, Australia
The Moloney twins continued to stake their claim as the best prospects in Australian boxing this weekend. I’ve long considered Andrew the better prospect of the two, but I don’t know if that is true anymore. Jason was able to use some nice skills here to mostly avoid the traditional Kohei Kono war, even dropping the hard nosed longtime Japanese contender with a jab. It is a bit disappointing that we got a cuts stoppage here as I would liked to have seen how he held up over twelve rounds, but this was a nice step up win. There is a lot of talk that Jason might be finding his way into the loaded World Boxing Super Series tournament too which would be a tremendous opportunity for him. As for Andrew, he fought a dangerous puncher in Claveras. He was briefly caught and dropped in the seventh, but he recovered fine and won basically every other minute of the fight as his Filipino foe is pretty basic other than his power. As Australians fighting in the lower weight classes these two will never be big international stars, but I’d wager some real money that the 27 year olds will be well known amongst hardcore fans by this time in 2019.
Abraham Nova (12-0, 10 KOs) KO7 Hassan Nourdine (9-3, 3 KOs), junior lightweights – Charleroi, Belgium
Abrahan Nova is a known prospect who was getting slots on PBC cards for three of his first four fights, but since then he has been a complete nomad. He has taken five fights stateside, one each in Mexico and Uruguay, two in the Dominican Republic, and this was his third in Belgium. The former amateur standout is certainly taking the road less traveled as a prospect. Of note, Nova was born in Puerto Rico to Dominican parents who then mostly grew up in New York City. There is some interesting marketing potential here along with very real talent. I wish PBC would bring him back for some FS1 cards as he has some obvious talent, but he definitely seems to have been a casualty of their lack of dates.
Oscar Rivas (24-0, 17 KOs) UD10 Herve Hubeaux (29-3, 14 KOs), heavyweights & Christian Mbilli (10-0, 10 KOs) TKO3 Marcos Jesus Cornejo (19-3, 18 KOs), middleweights & Mikael Zewski (31-1, 22 KOs) UD10 Diego Gonzalo Luque (21-6-1, 10 KOs), welterweights- Toronto, Canada
This is what I wrote in April the last time Oscar Rivas and Christian Mbilli shared a card: “Montreal based Colombian heavyweight prospect Oscar Rivas picked up another win on Thursday. Rivas is a good athlete with pop and that comes to fights in shape. There isn’t much more you can ask of a rising heavyweight except to start fighting actual contenders. I like Rivas. I like Christian Mbilli even more. It was only through poor luck of the draw in meeting eventual Cuban gold medalist Arlen Lopez that stopped the Cameroonian born prospect from medaling for France in Rio. I love his aggressive and body digging style as an early stage pro too. Mbilli is only 22 and has a couple years left as a prospect, but he is going to be an exciting one to watch grow up into a contender in there.” There is little left to add. Both delivered on that paragraph Saturday. Rivas used his athleticism to overcome a more game than expected opponent while Mbilli beat Cornejo down with thudding body work and all around power.
We also had a bit of a boxing freak show moment in this card. Mikael Zewski was once a Top Rank prospect before losing an in house eliminator of sorts between two prospects the promotional giant was underwhelmed with against Konstantin Ponomarev. They went their separate ways and he has returned to his more natural stomping grounds of Montreal with Yvon Michel. This was his fifth straight win post-Ponomarev and Top Rank and it was a notable one, just not because of the fighters. A fan actual got up to the ring and tried to force his way in during the eighth round. Local news reports are saying it was because he thought the fight was boring and was drunk enough to think he could improve it. Hopefully he gets what is coming to him from the Canadian legal system. Zewski won the actual fight wide.
Jose Carlos Paz (22-7-1, 12 KOs) UD10 Omar Chavez (36-5-1, 24 KOs), middleweights – Durango, Mexico
Omar Chavez, son of Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez, lost a regional level fight in Mexico this weekend. He has basically been a punch line his whole career amongst fight fans, but in truth Omar is just a victim of his name in that regard. He has done well on the Mexican regional scene without having any world level ability like many, many fighters before him who received no scorn for it. Unfortunately for Omar though, this is probably his worst loss and it creates his first losing streak of his career.
Kiko Martinez (38-8-2, 28 KOs) TD3 Marc Vidal (11-1-5, 5 KOs), featherweights – Elche, Spain
An accidental headbutt caused this all Spanish European title fight to end early as a technical draw. Former super bantamweight titleholder Kiko Martinez looked quite shot in 2016 after being relatively easily dismissed by Scott Quigg and Leo Santa Cruz, but he rebounded with a nice performance in a close loss against now titleholder Josh Warrington last May. He won two fights since then against really low level journeymen before trying for the Euro belt here, but unfortunately this fight never really got off the ground for him.
Firat Arslan (42-8-2, 27 KOs) KO1 Isaac Paa Kwesi Ankrah (14-8, 12 KOs), cruiserweights & Fatih Keles (10-0-1, 5 KOs) NC2 Maxim Churbanov (8-3-1), junior welterweights & Ali Eren Demirezen (9-0, 9 KOs) TKO4 Tornike Puritchamiashvili (11-9, 7 KOs), heavyweights & Mario Daser (14-0, 7 KOs) KO1 Claudio Morroni Porto (8-4-1, 7 KOs), cruiserweights – Trabson, Turkey
Near ageless, 47 year old cruiserweight Firat Arslan picked up another win this weekend, this time in Turkey. He’s been defending a minor WBO belt, so presumably the former titleholder wants one last shot before he hangs them up. His last opportunity was a narrow 2014 split decision loss to Yoan Pablo Hernandez. Also at cruiserweight, recent Ola Afolabi conqueror Mario Daser took a light stay busy fight on the card too. For the Turkish locals, a pair of Olympic prospects were also in action. Fatih Keles fought for Turkey in 2012 while Ali Eren Demirezen did the same in 2016. Neither is a major prospect in my view. Keles should already have a loss on his record to game European journeyman Renald Garrido while Demirezen just doesn’t have any real athleticism to his game. Still, I like to keep track of Olympians and they have time to develop.
Jack Catterall (21-0, 12 KOs) TKO1 Christopher Sebire (26-11-1, 9 KOs), junior welterweights & Ohara Davies (17-1, 13 KOs) PTS6 Ahmed Ibrahim (6-2-1, 1 KO), lightweights & Willy Hutchinson (4-0, 2 KOs) PTS4 Adam Jones (7-33-6, 2 KOs), light heavyweights & Fred Evans (5-0) PTS4 Darryl Sharp (5-34), super middleweights – Leeds, England
This is the prominent undercard action from Josh Warrington’s upset title win over Lee Selby in Leeds. Jack Catterall is the class of the group here and stayed busy with an easy win in hopes of landing a title eliminator or straight up shot next. This would likely be with the WBO. That could very well end up being a highly marketable British matchup with Terry Flanagan if the former lightweight titleholder wins the vacant title on June 9th. Ohara Davies was a pretty prominent prospect himself until a terrible 2017 saw him dominated and stopped by blue chip prospect Josh Taylor and then released from Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing following some questionable social media posts. Now with Frank Warren, he is looking to rebuild.
Willy Hutchinson is considered one of the better Scottish prospects in a while and picked up a four round referee decision here in the early stages of his career while former 2012 Olympic silver medalist Fred Evans picked up his fifth win here too. Evans would have been a major prospect coming out of those games like basically everyone else on his team was and has been, but a fight out of the ring and instead in a bar both doomed him physically and legally for about five years before his career could resume. It has now, but it almost feels like the ship has sailed on Fred Evans longterm.
Immanuwel Aleem (18-1-1, 11 KOs) RTD6 Juan De Angel (20-9-1, 18 KOs), super middleweights & Gary Antuanne Russell (6-0, 6 KOs) KO1 Wilmer Rodriguez (9-3, 7 KOs), welterweights & Antonio Russell (11-0, 9 KOs) TKO5 Jonathan Lecona Ramos (17-21-4, 6 KOs), bantamweights – Oxon Hill, Maryland
Immanuwel Aleem briefly looked like an elite prospect early last year when he stopped highly regarded Ukrainian Ievgen Khytrov, but then all that came crashing back down to Earth thanks to one beautiful shot form Hugo Centeno Jr in August. Here Aleem took his first fight back on Gary Russell Jr’s undercard against journeymen level competition. Also in action were Gary’s two younger brothers. Antonio isn’t necessarily expected to reach his brother’s heights as he is being moved slowly and lacks the amateur credentials, but Gary Antuanne is one of my most highly regarded prospects in all the sport. I think he can be special. Unfortunately I can’t see these fights to see if either perspective is changed by them because PBC is gonna PBC, but that is how I have felt along the way so far.
Nico Hernandez (5-0, 5 KOs) KO1 Szilveszter Kanalas (14-8, 9 KOs), flyweights & Oleksandr Teslenko (13-0, 11 KOs) TKO2 Terrance Marbra (9-6, 7 KOs), heavyweights – Mulvane, Kansasa
Surprise 2016 American bronze medalist Nico Hernandez continues to slowly build his career while largely self promoting at home in Kansas. It is a move easy to admire from an emotional and moral perspective as the idea of using his own clout to build up boxing in the midwest is a respectable one, but he of course is also losing all the benefits of having a big promoter. He couldn’t even get a flyweight to show up for his last two fights, for example. Still, he’s a solid prospect and cruised here. He also got a real undercard this time headlined by Canadian based Ukrainian heavyweight prospect Oleksandr Teslenko. Teslenko’s handlers still rightly view the 25 year old as raw, but time is on his side and he’s a skilled big man with the frame to grow into a full sized heavyweight. 25 is especially young at heavyweight too. The future is bright for Teslenko in my view as long as his team continues to take their time.
Thursday, May 17th
Romero Duno (17-1, 14 KOs) UD10 Gilberto Gonzalez (26-5, 22 KOs), lightweights & Oscar Duarte (14-0-1, 9 KOs) UD10 Rey Perez (22-10, 6 KOs), lightweights – Indio, California
Thursday’s pretty minor Golden Boy on ESPN card was headlined by a decent performance from once beaten Filipino prospect Romero Duno. This was an action oriented and relatively even fight through about halfway, though even in the first half when it was competitive Duno was obviously hurting Gonzalez more than vice versa. The 22 year old pulled away in the second half including a pretty big final frame where he looked for a finish. Given that until this fight Duno had only ever been really treated as an opponent and that his loss was a very forgivable one in Russia against a real prospect in Mikhail Alexeev, he’s probably a little better prospect than we give him credit for being. Fellow in house prospect Oscar Duarte picked up a win over at this point well beaten journeyman Rey Perez. Similar to what would happen in the main event, Perez stayed competitive early but was a clearly beaten man by the final bell. Neither Duno nor Duarte are clear, can’t miss blue chip sort of prospects, but with the right promotion and matchmaking we will see what Golden Boy can do with them going forward. There is talent to work with here.
