Fidel Maldonado, Jr. won in the Fox Sports 1 headliner Monday, doing his job effectively against a late replacement opponent, but a different junior, Errol Spence, was the fighter of the night.
Spence and fellow 2012 U.S. Olympian Terrell Gausha were matched against opposition of the non-rollover variety — contrary to the custom for FS1 — and Spence, a welterweight, impressively did in Peter Oluoch. Spence was all over Oluoch, who was tricky to hit with more than one punch at a time at first, but Spence's intelligent pressure and overall arsenal caught up to him. A combo dropped Oluoch in the 4th, who tried unsuccessfully to hold on. When Oluoch got up, still in trouble, Spence smashed him with a sharp, short left that put Oluoch on his butt and the ref saw enough. Oluoch had gone the distance with the likes of Rustam Nugaev, albeit at a lower weight, so Spence taking him out meant something. Keeping in mind that this was an undefeated youngster beating an opponent with a 12-6 record, it was nonetheless exactly the kind of thing a serious prospect with a bright future would do to someone like that.
In the main event, Maldonado also ended things in the 4th. Coming off a big stoppage win over Luis Ramos, Jr. (parents of boxers: come up with new names for your kids, already), the junior welterweight was prepping to face Steve Forbes, who himself hadn't fought in a year and had lost nine of his last 12 — the last at least a close loss to Johan Perez — and had to pull out after he couldn't pass a pre-fight exam. Yes, this is more like the FS1 I'm used to! So in came John Nater, who had beaten no one of note and been knocked out by others of note. Nater was feisty at first but clearly wasn't in peak shape, as he took a couple body shots for knockdowns in the 3rd and 4th. His corner wisely pulled the plug between the 4th and 5th rounds. Maldonado did what he was supposed to and, under the circumstances, it would've been impossible for him to get much more credit for it than that.
Gausha had his way with George Sosa and even though Sosa showed some spunk for most of the eight rounds, the impression Gausha left is that he could've stopped Sosa with a bit more sustained effort. By the 3rd he had bloodied Sosa for his bravery and by the 4th he nearly scored a knockdown via a big right hand, with Sosa saved by a glove malfunction that gave him damn near forever to recover. In the 8th Gausha turned in a display of naked aggression, rearranging Sosa's insides with viscious body punches and putting his legs to sleep if not his brain. Gausha didn't get the stoppage, so he ended the evening a couple car lengths behind Spence.
