Broner stops Rees; Bika defeats Sjekloca

By Boxing News - 02/16/2013 - Comments

broner33By Jim Dower: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) added another knockout on his resume on Saturday night in stopping a game but over-matched Gavin Rees (37-2-1, 18 KO’s) in the 5th round at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Broner, 23, knocked Rees down twice in the fight, once in the 4th, another time in the 5th. The fight was halted after Broner hurt Rees with a left to the body that knocked him down. After Rees got back to his feet, Broner flurried on him until Rees’ corner threw in the towel to have the fight stopped.

You can make an argument that Rees might have made it out of the round if his corner hadn’t thrown the towel, but he wasn’t going to anywhere. Broner was hurting him from the 3rd round on, and had they let the fight continue it only would have been worse for Rees.

In the fourth round, Broner dropped Rees with a big right uppercut that he never saw coming. The shot knocked Rees down flat on his back. Broner flurried on him as the round ended, but Rees was able to survive.

In the 3rd round, Broner hurt Rees with a right hand to the head and then opened up with an avalanche of punches as Rees covered up on the ropes. Luckily for Rees, the round ended before Broner would finish him off because he would have likely been stopped in that round.

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Sakio Bika (31-5-2, 21 KO’s) put himself in position tonight for a title shot by beating previously undefeated Nikola Sjekloca (25-1, 7 KO’s) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 119-109, 118-112, 120-108. Bika staggered Sjekloca in the 2nd round with a hard right hand on the top of the head. Bika suffered a cut over his right eye from an accidental head clash on the 9th round. Both fighters faded in the last four rounds, but Bika was clearly the more active fighter with the harder shots.

Sjekloca hurt his chances of winning the fight by not throwing enough. He didn’t have the power, but if he had let his hands go more he would have had a decent chance of winning. As it was, Sjekloca got Bika’s attention with some big right hands in the last three rounds, but he was never able to follow up with anything. It was one shot and then a long gap before the next one. Sjekloca’s defense was good. He had a way of smothering Bika’s shots, and that perhaps kept him from getting beaten worse.

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In something of a surprise, Edner Cherry (31-6-2, 17 KO’s) defeated Vicente Escobedo (26-5, 15 KO’s) by a 6th round TKO. Cherry knocked Escobedo down three times in the fight, once in the 2nd and twice more in the 6th. Cherry put Escobedo down with a couple of hard right hands in the 6th to get the stoppage. Escobedo looked like he was pushing his punches. He didn’t look as crisp as he had in his recent fight with Broner because Cherry didn’t look that great either, but Escobedo was far worse.

Other boxing results on the card:

Demetrius Hopkins TKO 6 Charles Whittaker
Robert Easter TKO 1 Jose Valderrama
Jamel Herring TKO 3 Carlos Lopez
Rau’shee Warren TKO 2 Richard Hernandez



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