By Jim Dower: In the main event on Saturday night, Undefeated #1 WBO Miguel “Mikey” Garcia (31-0, 26 KO’s) triumphed over WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido (39-12-2, 27 KO’s), beating him by an eight round technical decision in a four knockdown performance at Madison Square Garden. Garcia suffered a broken nose from a head clash in the 8th, and it looked like his trainer/brother Robert Garcia was able to get the fight to be stopped and go to the cards.
Having the fight go to the cards no doubt saved Garcia from potentially taking a lot of punishment to the nose in the remaining four rounds of the fight. But perhaps more than that, it saved Garcia from taking punishment period considering Salido was starting to land more of his own power shots.
The judges scored the fight 79-70, 79-69, 79-69, all for Garcia. Salido was knocked down twice in the 1st round from left hooks by Garcia. Salido was walking into the shots and getting dropped. In the 3rd, Garcia knocked Salido down with a perfect right uppercut to the head that he never saw coming while they were in close.
In the 4th, Garcia nailed Salido with a perfect left hook at the start of the round that put Salido down for the fourth time in the fight. From that point on, Salido seemed to get better at getting out of the way of some of Garcia’s best shots, but I think the main reason he was no longer getting knocked down from Garcia was because he seemed to tire somewhat.
Salido’s face was badly swollen up by the end of the fight. His right eye was purple and closing, and if anyone who should have been trying to pressure for a stoppage, it should have been Salido’s corner instead of Garcia’s. That eye was nasty looking, whereas Garcia’s nose didn’t look bad at all.
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WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (25-0, 22 KO’s) stayed undefeated with a 7th round TKO victory over challenger Gabriel Rosado (21-6, 13 KO’s). The fight was stopped by Rosado’s corner in the 7th round to stop the punishment for their fighter.
Rosado was a bloody mess from his nose and his left eye by the 7th. For all the talking that Rosado had done ahead of time about how he was going to dominate and stop Golovkin, it was a disappointing performance from him for the reason that he failed to deliver.
Instead of looking to go after Golovkin and beat him in a one on one battle, Rosado chose to move constantly around the ring in what you can only describe as a survival mode. Golovkin stalked Rosado constantly, throwing hard jabs that would snap Rosado’s head back, and then hitting him with sharp left hooks and right hands.
Rosado attempted to fight in the 4th, and had a pretty good round. However, that was the only round where he mixed up. Rosado was more intent on just running in the other rounds, and it at least enabled him to make it to the 7th. I don’t know how smart it was do fight his way because Rosado virtually ensured that he would lose the fight, but he must have felt he didn’t have enough power or skill to beat Golovkin if he tried to fight him.
Undercard results:
Juan Carlos Burgos D 12 Roman Martinez
Mikael Zewski TKO 4 Brandon Hoskins
Anthony Ferrante KO 10 Isa Akberbayev
Glen Tapia TKO 2 Ayi Bruce
Ronald Ellis UD 4 Steven Tyner
Felix Verdejo KO 1 Tomi Archambault