It is a relatively quiet week for UTR, but we still have much to discuss.
Saturday, October 27th
Tervel Pulev (12-0, 11 KOs) TKO2 Leonardo Damian Bruzzese (19-6, 6 KOs), cruiserweights – Sofia, Bulgaria
Tervel is the younger brother of Kubrat Pulev and he fought as his co-main event at home in Bulgaria. Younger is relative, of course, as Tervel is 35 to Kubrat’s 37. Pulev won bronze at the 2012 games in London, but he didn’t turn pro until 2016 at 33. I’m guessing he didn’t qualify for Rio. I can’t find much online though. As a professional he is campaigning as a cruiserweight and has fought in several countries including the United States, but he hasn’t stepped up his competition at all despite his amateur pedigree and advanced age. He should probably get on that. This fight certainly wasn’t a step up. His Italian foe had been previously stopped a couple times levels below Pulev’s. He fell here on basically anything the home favorite threw too.
Dominic Boesel (28-1, 10 KOs) UD12 Enrico Koelling (26-3, 8 KOs), light heavyweights – Weissenfels, Germany
2012 German Olympian Dominic Boesel faced disaster in his first step up to the true European level when he let an early lead fall apart and was stopped late by Karo Murat in mid 2017. This win in defense of his European title was in a way redemption. Koelling is far from world class, but he’s a solid level Euro guy who almost went the distance before being stopped in the twelfth against Artur Beterbiev in a world title shot. If Boesel lost again at this level at age 29, it would be time to write him off completely. Thankfully for him, that didn’t happen. The one negative of this result, however, is that the overall pattern of the Murat repeated. Boesel once again jumped out to a big lead and once again began to fall apart late. Stamina is an issue, clearly. The German made to the final bell and got the decision this time, but a guy without much power needs to figure out how to go twelve solid rounds if he wants any hope at world level or even consistent European level success.
Alessandro Riguccini (22-0, 18 KOs) TKO3 Andres Villaman (14-1, 10 KOs), welterweights – Ensenada, Mexico
I am absolutely fascinated by Alessandro Riguccini. He’s a fight sports renaissance man through and through. He began his career as a karate rules fighter before transitioning to pro kickboxing. In that discipline, he posted a record of 49-3, though I don’t know if he fought at the absolute top level of the sport. I’m no expert there. What I do know is all the while he was competing in European kickboxing, he was also living in Cuba at times and training hands with the Cuban national team. The Italian decided to switch to boxing full time and promptly moved to Mexico where he has had every fight past his pro debut. Riguccini and his wonderful Italian name that sounds like a type of pasta is fighting under Zanfer banners and blowing out basically every regional level Mexican put in front of him. Through his boxing career, Riguccini has also returned to kickboxing a few times, taken and won a pair of MMA fights, and also managed somehow to get an Engineering degree through all of this. He’s only 30 as well, somehow. It’s not all roses for the accomplished Italian though. He looks like engineer, not the fighter physically. He also doesn’t really pass the eye test in the ring up until the point of the knockout with his crude looking offense. Riguccini is just a strange fighter all around, but he’s won “major” minor titles from both the WBC and the IBF now so I’m guessing we will see his weirdness pop up in a bigger fight at some point here.
Roman Andreev (22-0, 16 KOs) TKO3 Evgeny Vazem (8-6, 3 KOs), junior welterweights – Lyubertsy, Russia
In August Jose Pedraza lifted the WBO title off Ray Beltran and has parlayed the win into a big money opportunity against pound for pound Vasyl Lomachenko next. He can thank Roman Andreev’s appendix for that. It was the Russian who was ordered to be Beltran’s defense by the WBO, not Pedraza. A bout of appendicitis saw Andreev out of the fight though and in stepped Jose. Talk about bad luck. I don’t have video on this fight, but I’m not worried about it. Vazem and that record were clearly designed to be a soft touch for the Russian’s return to the ring and he obviously delivered on that promise. You should know Andreev, however, for three assumptions that I feel are safe to make. One, Vasyl Lomachenko is going to beat Jose Pedraza and obtain the WBO title. Two, the WBO is not going to punish Roman for his illness and will still order his shot. Three, Arum and company at Top Rank will have no more of a problem with Andreev as an ESPN Loma headlining opponent than they did other unknowns like Marriaga and Servania. I’m going to go ahead and call a Lomachenko-Andreev Top Rank on ESPN main event for 2019 right now. It’s probably happening.
Kiko Martinez (39-8-2, 28 KOs) UD12 Marc Vidal (11-2, 5 KOs), featherweights – Fuenlabrada, Spain
Spanish veteran Kiko Martinez has had quite the career. There is not a ton else to cover this week either so let’s take the time to dive right in. Martinez built up an undefeated record at home in Spain in the early 2000s before stepping up to European level in 2008. He won the European tile at super bantamweight and proved to be about a .500 fighter on that level before finally getting it together and going on a win streak. While generally the guys fighting for the European belt are below world class, sometimes a rising world class prospect will elect to grab the belt on the way up. That is precisely how Kiko found himself in the ring and being stopped by Carl Frampton in 2013. Somehow getting stopped by Frampton and then winning a nothing eight rounder in Argentina was enough to get the Spaniard a world title shot, however, and he won against now largely forgotten (yet still otherwise active and unbeaten) Colombian Olympian Johnathon Romero. Kiko took a light defense at home before traveling to Japan in a fight he was supposed to lose against the talented Hozumi Hasegawa. Instead, Martinez pulled a big upset in thrashing the now retired three division titleholder over seven rounds.
That upset in Japan was Kiko’s high water mark for sure. Next he kept up his tradition of giving belts to Carl Frampton, this time losing his world title over the twelve round distance. 2015 and 2016 brought two quick, one sided losses to Scott Quigg and Leo Santa Cruz. His time at world level always seemed borrowed and definitely looked to be over at that point. Yet, in May of 2017 Martinez nearly upset Josh Warrington on the road in the UK, losing by a majority decision that could have just as easily been given to the road fighter. I thought that meant that Warrington had hit his ceiling and didn’t reach much into the Spaniard’s performance, but then the British fighter went on to win a real belt. I don’t know what to make of that. What is known for sure here is that Kiko picked up the European title at featherweight Saturday against Vidal more than a decade after he did the same at super bantamweight for the first time. That’s a nice accomplishment. Improbably the former world titleholder is still only 32, so maybe the Warrington fight did show something is still in the tank for world level. Probably not, but he has nothing to hang his head about either way. Kiko Martinez has had a successful pro career by any measure, especially given his lack of high level physical talent.
Omar Chavez (37-5-1, 24 KOs) UD10 Nicolas Luques Palacios (10-6, 1 KO), middleweights & Pedro Campa (29-1, 19 KOs) TKO2 Adrian Jose Perez (10-4, 8 KOs), junior welterweights – Sinoloa, Mexico
Omar Chavez, the lesser known fighting son of Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez, has never been anything approaching a world level contender. He was never even a prospect. The man with the famous last name ended up in a trilogy with a local fighter who was was 0-8-2 in their first fight and 1-11-3 after their last one. Omar went 2-0-1 against him and struggled mightily to get the two wins he did. We aren’t talking about a fighter who wasn’t a world level prospect at the start of his pro career, but one who was merely a local club fighter and nothing more. What he doesn’t get the credit for, however, is how much he did improve over the years. Omar stayed undefeated for a while thanks to incredibly soft matchmaking and a few generous decisions before finally losing two fights to Jorge Paez Jr. After those losses Omar kicked it into gear. He went 8-1 over his next nine despite fighting at a sort of mid to high regional level in Mexico, avenging the one loss to Ramon Alvarez by early KO as well. The journey from a guy who is equal to an 0-10-1 club fighter from a fighter who can beat the likes of Ramon Alvarez and Joachim Alcine is quite the leap even if it still didn’t get Chavez close to world class. He deserves massive props there. Unfortunately, it hasn’t lasted. Last August Omar was dominated by a regional talent in Roberto Garcia before returning in May to lose to a journeyman. Here he went back down to a sort of high club level and arguably lost this fight too, though he did get the close decision. The 28 year old has peaked. Once beaten Mexican contender Pedro Campa also got a fun second round win here too thanks to his opponents reckless aggression. Perez brought a kamikaze approach to the fight that didn’t serve him all that well, but it sure made the brief co-main event a fun watch.
John Ryder (27-4, 15 KOs) KO7 Andrey Sirotkin (15-1, 4 KOs), super middleweights & Ted Cheeseman (15-0, 9 KOs) UD12 Asinia Byfield (14-2, 6 KOs), junior middleweights & Felix Cash (10-0, 6 KOs) UD10 Stephen Danyo (14-2-3, 6 KOs), middleweights & Jordan Gill (22-0, 6 KOs) TKO7 Ryan Doyle (17-3-1, 9 KOs), featherweights – London, England
I talk about about levels on UTR often because there are dozens of them in the game and they are important to understand. Usually a fighter’s level is consistent, or at least trends consistently. Guys rise through the levels of the sport and fall the same way. Sometimes, however, we get John Ryders. One day Ryder is Billy Joe Saunders’s equal, the next he is worse than Nick Blackwell and Jack Arnfield. Then suddenly he is equal to Rocky Fielding again out of the blue. Those are his four losses. The Saunders and Fielding fights were razor close decisions too that he could have won with more favorable judges or by winning another round. Even this fight was inconsistent. Sirotkin and his nontraditional movement outclassed Ryder early before the badly bleeding British fighter rallied for a seventh round finish out of basically no where. Now he is Callum Smith’s mandatory challenger for a title fight that should be able to sell pretty well at home in the UK. Also picking up wins on the Matchroom card were prospects Ted Cheeseman, Felix Cash, and Jordan Gill. Of the three, Cheeseman is definitely the closest to a blue chip guy. He’s not exactly that, but I like him a lot. He’s big, durable, and has some skill. He also has a real solid win over Carson Jones already. Gill picked up a nice win in taking out Ryan Doyle who himself too stopped prospect Reece Belotti recently. It was a more dynamic performance from Gill than I expected for sure.
Ryan Toms (16-15-3, Fred Evans (5-1), middleweights – Newport, England
Goodbye from UTR, Fred Evans. The 2012 Olympic male boxing team for Great Britain has produced the likes of Anthony Joshua, Josh Taylor, Luke Campbell, and Andrew Selby. Anthony Ogogo also had a great deal of hype as a medalist, but we all saw him bust. Otherwise, there was Tom Stalker who flamed out at British level in the pros and Fred Evans. Evans is basically the only member of the team who didn’t get to capitalize on any of the buzz from his home games and it is entirely his fault. He won silver too so there would have been a tremendous amount of hype for the Welsh fighter had things turned out like for the others. Initially, however, he didn’t plan to turn pro. Unfortunately, he committed an assault in a bar not once but twice and ended up turning pro with his amateur status in doubt. Rumors ran amok about his dedication and life choices as his legal issues delayed his professional license as well. Evans also struggled a bit in the semi-pro World Series of Boxing league. He finally got his first professional fight at the beginning of last year and won five straight, but he did it looking pretty pedestrian against as low level competition as there is. His first step up above the lowest club levels (and let’s be clear, it was a tiny step up and still very much a club level fight) ended in this two round disaster. Fred Evans was dominated and knocked out by a 15-15 opponent. It is abundantly clear that the once promising Welsh Olympic silver medalist is not going to be the fighter that it looked like he was destined to become six years ago.
Anthony Fox (6-12-4) PTS6 Luke Blackledge (24-6-2, 9 KOs), light heavyweights – Colne, England
Luke Blackledge has fallen below the purview of even UTR, but I wanted to note this result anyway. This is a bad one. Blackledge has never been able to win at that the high British/European level, but he could fight his way to get shots there. Losing a shutout decision to a then 5-12 fighter means that’s certainly over for the 28 year old.
Subriel Matias (12-0, 11 KOs) DQ1 Fernando David Saucedo (62-9-3, 10 KOs), junior welterweights – New Orleans, Louisiana
Puerto Rican prospect Subriel Matias let his talent shine as the last prelim before the World Boxing Super Series fights on Saturday in New Orleans. He got a pretty dumb result out of though. Matias had dropped and hurt Saucedo repeatedly in the first round. During one particular barrage, Saucedo’s cornerman stepped up on the ring apron looking like he was going to stop the fight. Saucedo ended up fighting out of trouble briefly, however, and the ref never saw the cornerman, so he stepped back off the ring apron. Matias continued dominating and was on his way to an easy finish. Then the commission interfered, however, and instructed the referee to disqualify Saucedo for his cornerman’s infraction earlier. The Puerto Rican looks promising even if this fiasco wasn’t. This weirdness took his marketable perfect KO percentage from him too.
David Oliver Joyce (9-0, 7 KOs) UD6 Jorge Rojas (4-5-1, 2 KOs), lightweights & Steven Donnelly (4-0) UD4 Ray Cervera (0-3), middleweights & Bakhodir Jalolov (3-0, 3 KOs) TKO4 Tyrell Wright (9-3-2, 6 KOs), heavyweights – New York, New York
A trio of Rio Olympians took fights on the Jacobs-Derevyancheko undercard at the MSG Theater. David Oliver Joyce is the “name” prospect here. He and Steven Donnelly were Irish Olympians and come with that built in fanbase, but to be honest I’m not very high on either. Donnelly especially is unlikely to amount to much as a feather fisted 30 year old. Joyce too is already 31. Given how soft their opposition continues to be combined with their real amateur credentials and age, I don’t think their handlers expect all that much out of them competitively either. Full sized, 6’6″ Uzbekistani heavyweight Bakhodir Jalolov has more potential at 24. He placed well in international tournaments too over the past few years, generally bowing out in the quarterfinal rounds to absolute top amateurs. There are no blue chippers here, but I like to keep tabs on all Olympians for the most part.
Juan Heraldez (15-0, 9 KOs) TKO3 Maynard Allison (11-4, 7 KOs), junior welterweights – Las Vegas, Nevada
The one thing I appreciate about Mayweather Promotions is they put on small shows to keep their guys busy when PBC isn’t getting them fights. That can’t be said across the board of the PBC “promoters” of record. Juan Heraldez is one of those fighters. The 28 year old junior welterweight scored nice wins last year and early this year on Premier Boxing Champions branded shows over Jose Miguel Borrego and Kevin Watts. At this stage in his career, however, Heraldez most certainly cannot be fighting only one time a year. Without a PBC date on the horizon for him, Mayweather’s team put together this small card with Heraldez as the headliner. The fight itself was a nothing throw away mismatch, but activity remains important even if the fights themselves are never going to be competitive. Activity keeps a young fighter focused on something and developing in the gym.
Ilunga Makabu (23-2, 22 KOs) KO2 Paata Aduashvili (26-25-3, 18 KOs), cruiserweights – Mont d’Or, France
Cruiserweight contender Ilunga “Junior” Makabu picked up a stay busy win in France over a Georgian journeyman. The Congolese fighter is 4-0 since he was stopped by Tony Bellew in the two men’s vacant title opportunity. It is easy to forget now that Bellew is viewed as real top fighter, but back then that result was actually a bit of a surprise. This is doubly true given how easily Junior dropped Tony in the first round. It has basically just been a holding pattern for Makabu since then though. The only thing he has really accomplished is picking up a minor WBC belt in his last fight against a 39 year old Gabonese fighter with an entirely empty record. Hopefully Junior Makabu fights a top contender soon.
