By Allan Fox: Former 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) avenged his previous defeat against WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (31-1, 12 KO’s) by beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judge’s scores were 116-112, 116-112, and 118-110.
Bradley controlled the action in much of the first quarter of the fight, but Pacquiao came on starting with the 7th and dominated the last 6 rounds to win what appeared to be a close decision.
#1 WBO lightweight champion Raymundo Beltran (29-6-1, 17 KO’s) not surprisingly defeated substitute opponent Arash Usmanee (20-2-1, 10 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant NABO lightweight. The final judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-111, and 117-111.
Usmanee did a lot of moving in the ring to avoid getting hit, and it forced Beltran to focus mostly on throwing body shots. It was a decent stay busy fight for Beltran, but far from what you would consider a good co-feature bout. Top Rank should have done better than this for the co-feature.
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Unbeaten #3 WBA Jessie Vargas (24-0, 9 KO’s) defeated IBO/WBA World light welterweight champion Khabib Allakhverdiev (19-1, 9 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to capture his two titles. The final judges scores were 115-113, 115-113, 117-111.
The fight was very difficult to score, and you can make an argument that either fighter deserved to win. Vargas was a lot better in the first part of the fight than the second half. Allakhverdiev suffered a cut over his eye in the 8th, but it wasn’t a factor in the fight. Neither of these guys looked in the class of the better 140lb fighters in the division such as Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia, Lamont Peterson and Ruslan Provodnikov, but they made it entertaining at least.
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WBA interim super featherweight champion Bryan Vazquez (34-1, 17 KO’s) boxed his way to a 12 round unanimous decision over Jose Felix Jr. (26-1-1, 21 KO’s). The final judges scores were 117-110, 114-113, and 114-113. Vazquez looked good in throwing combinations and getting the better of Felix Jr.
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Making his first fight of his career, Ukrainian 2012 bronze medalist Oleksandr Gvozdyk (1-0, 1 KO’s) destroyed Mike Montoya (4-3-1, 2 KO’s) in a 1st round knockout in light heavyweight action. The bout was halted at 2:55 of the 1st round after Gvozdyk floored him.
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Unbeaten super featherweight Oscar Valdez (10-0, 9 KO’s), a 2008 and 2012 Olympian, stopped Adrian Perez (10-5-1, 1 KO’s) in the 4th round to win the NABF super featherweight title. Valdez, 23, knocked the 33-year-old Perez down with a shot to the body, causing the fight to be halted at 1:23 of the 4th round.
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2012 Olympian Silver medalist Esquiva Falcao (2-0, 1 KO’s) remained unbeaten in defeating Publio Pena (2-1, 1 KO’s) bu a one-sided 6 round unanimous decision. The final judges scores were 60-54, 60-54, 60-53.
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32-year-old #4 IBF, #6 WBA light heavyweight contender Sean Monaghan (21-0, 14 KO’s) defeated 29-year-old Joe McCreedy (15-7-2, 6 KO’s) by a 5th round TKO. Monaghan dropped McCreedy a couple of times in the 5th before the bout was ultimately stopped at 2:25 of the 5th by referee Jay Nady. With this victory, Monaghan holds onto his WBC Continental Americas light heavyweight title.
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