Hopkins defeats Murat; Deontay destroys Firtha; Quillin defeats Rosado

By Boxing News - 10/26/2013 - Comments

deontay111By Jim Dower: IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) successfully defended his title by beating challenger Karo Murat (25-2-1, 15 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision in a dirty fight on Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. The final judges scores were 117-110, 119-108, 119-108.

The scores were a little wide because Murat appeared to win at least 3-4 rounds based on his constant work. He landed a lot of punches in the fight despite Hopkins’ head movement. Hopkins failed to throw a lot of punches in most rounds, and his focus seemed to be more on trying not to get hit. When Hopkins would turn it on though, he was able to catch Murat with some big punches that would get his attention.

Murat lost a point for hitting on the break in the 7th round. Referee Steve Smoger could have taken points away from Murat in the 6th after he nailed Hopkins with two punches when he slipped down between the ropes and was defenseless. Good thing for Murat that Hopkins didn’t elect to play it after he was because Murat would have surely been disqualified. However, it would have likely made Hopkins look bad because he also injured his shoulder in the 2nd round after Chad Dawson in 2011 in a move where many boxing fans thought Hopkins was trying to get a disqualification win.

Murat came on strong in the 9th round and was able to nail Hopkins with some good punches. But Hopkins fought well in the 10th and 11th rounds with his power shots and accurate punches. Murat came back in the 12th and dominated the action with his hard punches, as he was trying to score a knockout.

After the fight Hopkins said he’s willing to move down to 160 to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr.

WBO middleweight belt holder Peter Quillin (30-0, 21 KO’s) beat Gabriel Rosado (21-7, 13 KO’s) by a 10th round TKO. The ringside doctor advised that the fight be stopped in the 10th due to a bad cut that Rosado had suffered over his left eye in the 9th. Quillin knocked Rosado down in the 2nd round but he wasn’t hurt. The final judges scores at the time of the stoppage were 90-80, 87-83 and 89-81.

Quillin connected with a hard jab that opened up the cut. Rosado was doing surprisingly well during the entire fight and he appeared to be coming on at the time that the fight was halted. Rosado had Quillin on shaky legs in the 4th after hitting him with a tremendous right hand to the head. I’m not sure how Quillin took the shot because a lot of fighters would have been dropped.

Quillin landed a lot of bombs in the fight with both hands, but Rosado never had any problems taking his shots.

The crowd booed loudly after the fight was stopped in the 10th because it was starting to be an interesting fight with Rosado pressuring Quillin and landing huge punches.

Heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30 KO’s) scored his 30th consecutive knockout in stopping Nicolai Firtha (21-11-1, 8 KO’s) in the 4th round.

Deontay dropped Firtha four times in the fight with two of them coming in the 1st round, another in the 3rd and a final knockdown The final knockdown was brutal with Deontay poleaxing Firtha with a huge right hand that dropped Firtha’s body on the canvas. The fight was then halted.

At all times, Deontay looked very, very powerful. The shots that he was landing were making a huge impact sound on the face of Firtha and the boxing fans were really into it. They really liked the fact that Deontay was looking to hit a homerun with every punch that he threw.

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Other boxing results

Braulio Santos TKO 1 David Clark
Zachary Ochoa UD 4 Michael Doyle
Dominic Wade TKO 1 Roberto Ventura



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