Nico Hernandez and Claressa Shields pick up wins on DAZN as well
It didn’t matter in the end, but Bogdan Dinu (18-1, 14 KOs) came out and had him a very solid first round behind his jabs and right hands against the heavily favored (and just plain heavy) Jarrell Miller (23-0-1, 20 KOs). The Romanian unknown repeated the act even better in the second round too. Dinu craftily used lateral movement and his jab to completely neutralize “Big Baby”.
The house fighter turned up the intensity in the third round. The 317 lb man began coming forward with urgency and digging Dinu to the body any chance he got. It only took one more round at the increased pace to finish the fight too. Not too long into the fourth, the Romanian stood still in the middle of the ring long enough for Jarrell Miller to rip him twice the body before turning a hook upstairs. The shot clipped Bogdan on the top of the had and dropped him to the canvas. He got up, but Jarrell put him down immediately once again to finish the bout.
Post-fight Big Baby attributed his slow start to having a cold. The big man called out Trevor Bryan and Dillian Whyte as well.
In the two bouts before the main event Nico Hernandez (6-0, 4 KOs) and Claressa Shields (7-0, 2 KOs) picked up their expected wins. Hernandez, the Kansas native and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, rather uneventfully outboxed Josue Morales (8-8-3) in front of his home fans. It wasn’t exciting, however. Morales just didn’t want to engage and there was little Nico could do with that other than take the easy rounds. To her credit Hannah Rankin (5-3, 1 KO) did not have that mindset. The British challenger tried her best against Claressa Shields. She didn’t have the skill and took a ten round beating, but her heart was definitely in the fight. With the win the two belt female middleweight titleholder picked up a third title courtesy of the WBC.
“Bam Bam” Brandon Rios (35-4-1, 26 KOs) and Ramon Alvarez (27-7-3, 16 KOs) put on a real fun fight on the Kansas undercard as well. Ramon, brother to Mexican superstar Canelo, lit the favored Rios up over the first couple rounds to the point that he looked on the way to a big upset win.
Weight probably helped the Mexican here. Alvarez has competed at middleweight while Rios was once upon a time a top lightweight. Bam Bam Rios kept his pressure going, however, and over time Alvarez began to crack. Nevertheless, by the last few rounds of the fight Brandon had taken over at least the pace. Both men were landing evenly, but the style of he bout was a Brandon Rios brawl. The fight seemed over in the eighth round with Alvarez all but out standing thanks to roughly 5,000 monster right hands from Rios. The bell saved him. It would be the referee saving Alvarez early in the ninth. He wasn’t taking quite as bad of a beating as he was at the end of the eighth, but Ramon had all but stopped moving and returning fire. The stoppage was good.
Finally, opening the main part of the DAZN broadcast was the first draw for both Gabriel Rosado (24-11-1, 14 KOs) and Luis Arias (18-1-1, 9 KOs). The highlight of the fight belonged to the more experience Rosado as he hurt Arias in the ninth, but overall there can be no complaints about the decision. Both men had a just one or two clear rounds in their favor while the majority of the scoring was simply splitting hairs. The draw as fair. It also may only have happened thanks to an accidental headbutt in the twelfth round. Arias was bleeding and the blood was getting into his right eye. The ethnically Cuban fighter did not react well and seemed to panic a bit. This all but handed Rosado the final round of what turned out to be scored a draw.
All in all this show was as mediocre as it was on paper. Maybe it exceeded expectations a little. Rios-Alvarez was a lot of fun. That probably doesn’t bode well for Brandon Rios going forward as Ramon Alvarez is a regional fighter at best, but that doesn’t diminish how good their fight was. Bogdan Dinu also exceeded expecations in the main event. He made things interesting against Jarrell Miller for ten more minutes than he was supposed to. Everything else was just sort of there.
