By Jim Dower: Fighting without his WBO title that he lost on the scales last Friday, Mikey Garcia (32-0, 27 KO’s) had an easy time stopping former two division world champion Juan Manuel Lopez (33-3, 30 KO’s) in the 4th round on Saturday night at the American Airlines Center, in Dallas, Texas, USA. Garcia knocked Lopez down with a nice right hand in the 2nd.
In the 4th round, Mikey nailed a desperate Juanma with a left hook to the head that dropped him on the canvas. The fight was then halted by Raphael Ramos at 1:35 of the round.
Lopez was jabbing continuously in the first two rounds, and he finally realized in the 2nd that he couldn’t stay on the outside and have any chance of winning. Late in the 2nd, Lopez begin to press the attack but then walked into a right hand that knocked him down.
With swelling around his left eye, Lopez attempted to put smart pressure on Mikey in the 3rd round, but he was caught left short left hooks and jabs frequently. On very few occasions was Lopez able to land any of his power shots in the 3rd. He just couldn’t get close enough to Mikey without getting nailed.
In the 4th, Mikey tagged Lopez with a scorching left hook to the head that dropped him. The fight was then stopped at that point. There was no way that Lopez was going to be able to survive had the fight continued.
Mikey will now likely be moving up to the super featherweight division because he appears to have outgrown the featherweight class. It’s going to be interesting to see if he can dominate at this weight like he did at featherweight.
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Undefeated lightweight Terrence Crawford (21-0, 15 KO’s) looked impressive in toying with Alejandro Sanabria (34-2-1, 25 KO’s) for five rounds before knocking him out in the 6th with a left hook to the head. Sanabria was too hurt to continue and the fight was halted at 0:17 of the round.
Earlier in the fight the crowd booed the cautious style of the two fighters. This in turn caused Crawford to break out of his defensive shell to go after Sanabria. In the 3rd, Crawford hurt Sanabria with a nice right hand. To his credit, Sanabria survived the round and even nailed Crawford with a big right hand just as the round ended.
Crawford had his way with Sanabria in rounds 4 and 5, as he hit him with hard jabs, left hooks and right hands continuously.Sanabria kept trying but he was hit with counter shots frequently when he would try to mount an attack.
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Other boxing action on the card:
Oscar Valdez TKO 2 Gil Garcia
Mikael Zewski UD 8 Damian Frias
Matt Korobov TKO 3 Ossie Duran
Vanes Martirosyan TKO 2 Ryan Davis
John Karl Sosa KO 2 Alexis Pena
Kurtiss Colvin TKO 5 Angel Sigala
Juan Antonio Lopez KO 4 Jonathan Hernandez
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