This week we have Billy Joe Saunders, Tyrone Spong, a new titleholder, the end of Martin Murray, and more
Saturday, December 22nd
Denys Berinchyk (10-0, 7 KOs) TKO7 Rosekie Cristobal (15-3, 11 KOs), lightweights – Ukraine
30 year old 2012 silver medalist Denys Berinchyk moved into double digits in the win column as a professional on Saturday. The Ukrainian also was the 2011 World Amateur Championships runner up as well and here he gave Filipino opponent Rosekie Cristobal his first non-disqualification loss. Berinchyk is a solid prospect. He isn’t a blue chipper at 30 necessarily, but he has some of the skills you’d expect to go along with his amateur credentials and is a physically strong lightweight to boot. None of that is his story so far, however. Instead Berinchyk is quickly making a name for himself with his absurd ring entrances. This time he came out to Super Mario music of Nintendo fame, dressed as the red clad plumber himself. You can’t make this stuff up. The actual stoppage of this fight came with Cristobal on his feet not necessarily badly hurt, but more visibly overwhelmed and trapped in the corner as Berinchyk pitter pattered away.
Liam Williams (19-2-1, 14 KOs) TKO10 Mark Heffron (21-1, 17 KOs), middleweights & Hassan N’Dam (37-3, 21 KOs) MD12 Martin Murray (37-5-1, 17 KOs), middleweights & Nathan Gorman (15-0, 11 KOs) UD12 Razvan Cojanu (16-5, 9 KOs), heavyweights & Michael Conlan (10-0, 6 KOs) UD10 Jason Cunningham (24-6, 6 KOs), lightweights & Billy Joe Saunders (27-0, 13 KOs) RTD4 Charles Adamu (32-14, 25 KOs), middleweights & Tommy Fury (1-0) UD4 Jevgenijs Andrejevs (10-103-3, 4 KOs), light heavyweights – Manchester, England
It wasn’t a particular exciting set of fights, unfortunately, but the Warrington-Frampton undercard was pretty loaded in terms of relevance to the sport. Fringe world level contender Liam Williams reestablished himself as above the British level that he banished Mark Heffron back to in the co-main event. Heffron just had no answers for Williams’s sharp right hand. It obliterated him in the tenth just when it seemed like maybe Liam was starting to fade. Nope. In a battle of fringe middleweight contenders, Hassan N’Dam likely retired a flat Martin Murray for good. All N’Dam really had to do was keep moving and throwing. The longtime British contender and multiple time title challenger just didn’t have the energy to deal with him. Top prospects Nathan Gorman and Michael Conlan picked up what could be considered minor step up wins over decent mid-regional level foes in Razvan Cojanu and Jason Cunningham at heavyweight and featherweight respectively. Both were pretty tedious fights to watch though as both the young fighters played it pretty safe. Disgraced former middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders also began to rebuild his career with a stoppage win over a journeyman following his drug tests failures while Tommy Fury, brother of Tyson Fury, just plain began his career altogether. Tommy didn’t have a long amateur career, but neither did Tyson so I guess we can’t necessarily write him off on that alone.
Charlie Edwards (14-1, 6 KOs) UD12 Cristofer Rosales (28-4, 19 KOs), WBC flyweight title & Joshua Buatsi (9-0, 7 KOs) TKO1 Renold Quinlan (12-4, 8 KOs), light heavyweights & Carlos Takam (36-5-1, 28 KOs) TKO7 Senad Gashi (17-2, 17 KOs), heavyweights – London, England
While British level veterans Ryan Walsh and David Price picked up wins on the Whyte-Chisora II card as well, these are the undercard bouts from the Matchroom bill with more world level relevance. Chief among them was a surprising and earned world title win for British flyweight Charlie Edwards. This was a pretty big upset, but it turns out that Cristofer Rosales still doesn’t deal all that well with movement. The wide scores here were kind of ridiculous, but not Edwards having his hand raised. Rosales brought intensity and won rounds. He was outboxed in most of the others, however, as the 25 year old Brit just was the one landing more often than not. Maybe even more impressive to me on paper was blue chip British light heavyweight prospect Joshua Buatsi’s one round destruction of a pretty solid regional level fighter in Australian Renold Quinlan. Except when watching it, Buatsi’s win was pretty underwhelming. He first hurt Quinlan badly with borderline illegal shots on the break without repercussion. He then dropped the already compromised Australian with a clean left hook. Renold got up and seemed like he could keep going, but the fight was waved off anyway. That was a let down all around. Finally, heavyweight fringe contender Carlos Takam picked up a comeback win following his surprise KO loss to Dereck Chisora that set up this show’s main event. Takam was beating Chisora before the surprise finish and remains a fringe contender at worst.
Rances Barthelemy (27-1, 14 KOs) TKO3 Robert Frankel (36-20-1, 8 KOs), lightweights & Terrell Gausha (21-1, 10 KOs) KO1 Joey Hernandez (27-5-1, 17 KOs), middleweights & Efe Ajagba (8-0, 7 KOs) TKO1 Santino Turnbow (4-4, 3 KOs), heavyweights & Efetobor Apochi (6-0, 6 KOs) TKO1 Eric Abraham (5-2, 2 KOs), cruiserweights – Brooklyn, New York
Former two weight world titleholder Rances Barthelemy returned back to lightweight for a tune up against a journeyman on the PBC on FOX deep undercard. He had no issues in his first fight since being dominated by Kyril Relikh in a failed third world title bid at junior welterweight in March. Neither did former US Olympian Terrell Gausha after over a year off following his first career loss against Erislandy Lara. In fact, Gausha’s first round finish of Joey Hernandez is a solid result. It took Austin Trout seven to get rid of him and J-Rock Williams had to settle for a decision. The crown jewel here, however, is Nigerian heavyweight prospect Efe Ajagba. He has only left the first round once so far and didn’t do it here. The 24 year old looks like a future star big man, though to be fair Ajagba hasn’t been even close to tested yet. Fellow countryman and Olympic teammate Efetobor Apochi also picked up a win at cruiserweight as well, but at 31 already his window will be narrow to make it to world level.
Charles Conwell (9-0, 7 KOs) RTD3 Manny Woods (16-8-1, 6 KOs), junior middleweights – Columbus, Ohio
2016 US Olympian Charles Conwell is by far having the most quiet rise up the ranks for any active member of the team. I’ve seen less than half of his fights which is quite strange for an American Olympic prospect in this age of so many outlets for fighters to find themselves on. The 21 year old doesn’t even have a picture on Boxrec, somehow. Of course time will eventually tell, but it does make me wonder if the talented young man was wise to sign with veteran promoter Lou DiBella rather than one of the current top level players. I’m not saying he wasn’t to be clear. DiBella actually has a nice collection of prospects that could turn into an excellent stable and all that comes with that, but compare his current status to that of his peers and there is a difference. Of course, maybe that is just because he is 21 and lost in the first round too.
Friday, December 21st
Paul Fleming (26-0, 17 KOs) UD8 Panya Uthok (52-6, 35 KOs), junior lightweights & Luke Jackson (17-1, 7 KOs) UD8 Rivo Rengkung (37-29-6, 14 KOs), junior lightweights & Youssef Dib (11-0, 5 KOs) RTD2 Ty Gilchrist (6-8-1, 2 KOs), welterweights – Bankstown, Australia
The Australian scene kept moving on Friday night. Both Paul Fleming and Luke Jackson were Olympians for their home countries, but they’ve had different professional experience so far. Jackson competed in London 2012 and has tried to function on world level. Carl Frampton utterly dominated Jackson, but he tried and was very game in the fight. Paul Fleming, on the other hand, competed way back in the 2008 Olympic games. Despite being a decade removed from his Olympic experience and being 26 fights in his pro career, Fleming is still taking eight round regional level fights. The 30 year old is targeting WBO titleholder Masayuki Ito pubicly, however, so maybe that changes in 2019. As for Youssef Dib, he is part of the much maligned Dib fighting family thanks to some of the tedious fights we’ve been subjected to thanks to brother Billy Dib. Still, he isn’t necessarily going to fight in the same style as his brother and comes from a solid family pedigree.
Tyrone Spong (13-0, 12 KOs) SD10 Ytalo Perea (11-4-2, 7 KOs), heavyweights & Alexis Angulo (24-1, 21 KOs) KO4 Reinaldo Gonzalez (12-1, 8 KOs), super middleweights – Paramibo, Suriname
33 year old kickboxing all time great Tyrone Spong hit the first little hiccup of his professional boxing career this weekend in his native Suriname, the little known by Americans Dutch speaking South American nation. Spong says he broke his hand in an opening round in which he was also tagged a bunch and wobbled a little by his aggressive Ecuadorian foe. From there this fight went back and forth and really could have been scored narrowly for either man. If Tyrone was compromised physically, this is a somewhat forgivable struggle at least. If that is just one of those boxing excuses, however, then this probably marks Spong’s ceiling in the hands alone game. Also in action was recent Zurdo Ramirez challenger Alexis Angulo. The Colombian, who wasn’t overwhelmingly outmatched at world level, took out his previously unbeaten foe in four. I suspect we will see Angulo back at world level at some point.
