Huge weekend filled with fights and upsets, I hope everyone enjoyed!

Friday January 18 – DAZN

The DAZN card on Friday at the HULU Theatre at MSG, was entertaining and had some very historical significance. Starting with Amanda Serrano, she beat Eva Voraberger to become a 7 weight champion. Serrano blasted her with a left hook to the body after about 32 seconds and Voraberger could not recover. She is a true champion and I hope she tries to avenge the loss of her sister Cindy and fight Katie Taylor.

*Highlights of the knockout are here.

The next fight was the biggest upset of the weekend. Pablo Cesar Cano blasted Jorge Linares in 1 round after knocking him down 3 times. Cano seemed to show zero regard for Linares and came after him right away. This was Linares first true test at 140 lbs. And it will probably be his last fight there.

The odds on this fight were astronomical as you can see below.

This might be the end of Jorge Linares at the top level, which is sad because in his prime he was as smooth and as fun to watch as anyone in the business.

*Highlights of the bludgering can be found here.

The main event was the WBO Middleweight Championship of Demetrius Andrade vs. Artur Akavov. This went pretty much exactly as we thought it would and Andrade thoroughly outclassed Akavov throughout every minute of the fight. I had scored the fight a shutout until the fight was very weirdly stopped with like 30 seconds to go. Andrade never knocked him down or seriously hurt him, yet the ref stepped in and stopped it. Akavov of course was only there to survive but I felt he had done enough to hear the final bell on Friday, and the ref took that from him.

Where Andrade goes from here is interesting, because he is still high risk low reward due to his style. He will give anyone in the Middleweight Division problems so I hope we see him against another belt holder ASAP

*Highlights of the fight are here.

Friday January 18 – ESPN+

This card opened with Top Prospect Shakur Stevenson showcasing his skills against an over matched opponent. He seems to have found his power in his last two fights and now will be a force to reckon with moving forward. He is still extremely young so Top Rank needs to be smart with the matchmaking, but he should be read to fight for a world title in 2020.

*Highlights of this fight can be found here.

The ESPN+ main event from the Turning Stone Casino in NY was a slower fight between two plodding Heavyweights. Bryant Jennings seemed to be working his way toward a decision win until Oscar Rivas came out in the 12th round and plastered him. It kind of came out of nowhere because he had not shown that the entire fight, however he must have been saving up for a big championship rounds. Rivas now injects himself into the exciting HW division where he will surely get a big fight next.

This is good for boxing because as they say “as the HW division goes, so does boxing.”  

*Highlights for this fight can be found here.

Saturday January 19 – Showtime PPV

Our marquee event of the weekend was the Pay Per View (75 dollars of nonsense) between Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner. The MGM Garden Arena had a mid 2000’s feeling where the Pac Man put on a vintage performance and out performed Broner in every way possible. He out boxed, out worked, and out classed “The Problem.” The only person who did not feel this way was Adrien himself. To be honest watching Broner get on the ropes and celebrate, when it’s hard to even find 2 rounds to give him, was comical and very satisfying. I have no problem saying he is a bad person and I hope he is done at the top level of boxing.

This fight went how we thought, where Pac threw punches in bunches and Broner just does not throw punches. Broner only landed 8 punches at most during a round according to COMPUBOX. After the fight Pac called out Mayweather which the collective boxing world rolled their eyes about, which means it will probably happen, unless.

*Highlights of this fight are found here.

This was a jam packed weekend of fights, and showed the potential of having all these different services for boxing. There is no better time to be a combat sports fan than 2019.

*My Pound for Pound Rankings can be found here.