You know what I was watching tonight? The Winter Olympics. And let me tell you, speed skating DESTROYS boxing! I’m going to start a ice skating blog and kill TQBR. This’ll be my last post ever, and naturally it’s a wrap-up of all the so-so boxing cards from this weekend, other than the Friday Night Fights show. Here we go with boxing results today; tomorrow, it’s all Johnny Weir, all the time:
- On the mysterious network HBO Plus, which is harder to find on your television dial than “Wheel of Fish,” featherweight Daniel Ponce De Leon knocked out Orlando Cruz in three Saturday. De Leon is kind of a force of nature, and Cruz has some ability, but force of nature won out. De Leon’s win gives him a vacant alphabet belt, and sets him up for a potential fight with Elio Rojas, the WBC titlist in the division. On the undercard, junior welterweight Lucas Matthysse put to rest any notion of the idea that Vivian Harris could ever again make it to the “contender” level, knocking out Harris in four. Harris’ self-belief is commendable, but dude should have recognized he was shot a couple fights ago and taken the biggest paycheck he could’ve then called it quits. Matthysse may or may not be more than your typical South American puncher with a trumped-up record, but the truth wasn’t exposed by Harris.
- The aforementioned Rojas scored an easy unanimous decision over Guty Espadas Jr., which makes perfect sense. I can’t say I have a real strong sense of how good Rojas is, but I do think that the winner of De Leon-Rojas would be positioning himself as a real player in a deep division that includes Chris John, Juan Manuel Lopez, Yuriorkis Gamboa and others.
- Also Saturday, junior flyweight Giovanni Segura and lightweight Urbano Antillon delivered quick knockouts over their overmatched opponents on Fox Sports Net, a card that, for all the FSN channels I have, I couldn’t locate this evening. Antillon probably needs some more rebuilding before stepping up against contender-quality opposition, but this is a start. Segura, meanwhile, needs to get in there with someone legit. Segura called out Ivan Calderon after the fight, and it’s the best fight in the division, but Calderon may have a mandatory title challenger to dispense with first.
- On Telemundo Friday, bantamweight William Gonzalez defeated Jesus Vazquez by wide decision. It doesn’t mean much more than that. I just mention Gonzalez because I like him for being in good fights. Maybe this puts him in position for another meaningful bout. Other things went down on Telemundo, too. (I like Edner Cherry too, so it was good to see the lightweight win this weekend also, and maybe this plan of moving down to junior lightweight can be profitable.)
