By Scott Gilfoid: In a highly controversial decision, Britain’s Kell Brook (33-0, 22 KOs) defeated IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-1-1, 15 KOs) by a 12 round majority decision on Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. The final judges’ scores were 114-114, 117-111, and 116-112. The scores were way off from what happened in the ring. I had Porter winning 11 of the 12 rounds.
Brook was clinching between 10-15 times per round all night long without having points taken away from him. Porter would come in and Brook would grab him almost immediately. The pattern would be repeated as soon as the referee broke the two fighters.
After the fight, Brook said “I’m the top dog in England. Everyone thought I was going to come over here and get knocked out. You’re going to see me in some mega fights. I’m the champion. Top fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr I welcome that fight.”
I’m not sure that Mayweather will be interested in fighting someone that holds as much as Brook does. He was literally holding all night long. Mayweather won’t want to fight someone that clinches as much as Brook, I hate to say.
Porter said “I don’t think he beat the champion tonight. He took my belt tonight. I want the rematch. I’ll go back to back to the drawing board.”
Amir Khan said “I had Kell down a couple of points.”
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#6 WBC Anthony Dirrell (27-0-1, 22 KOs) beat WBC super middleweight champion Sakio Bika (32-6-3, 21 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night to capture the WBC 168 pound champion. The final judges scores were 114-113, 116-111 and 117-110. Bika lost a point for hitting low in the 8th round.
It was an ugly fight filled with rabbit punches, low blows, elbows and hitting on the break. Bika did an awful lot of fouling in the fight, but luckily for him referee Jack Reiss didn’t want to ruin the fight by taking off multiple points or disqualifying Bika for fouling.
Dirrell started out the fight looking for a KO in the 1st round, as he went after Bika big time in landing some monstrous head shots while showing off blazing hand speed. By the 3rd, Dirrell calmed down and was looking to land pot shots to win rounds. His trainer was asking Dirrell to throw his jabs, but he wasn’t having any of that.
In the 5th round, Dirrell hurt Bika was a series of hard power shots to the head. At the end of the round the referee got in the way of Dirrell when he was trying to finish Bika off with power shots.
Bika seemed cautious of Dirrell’s power in rounds 6 through 9, as he played it safe and didn’t come forward nearly as much as he did in the first 5 rounds.
Dirrell played it safe in rounds 10 through 12. He wasn’t throwing shots like he had in the first 9 rounds, and many of the shots he threw missed, resulting in Dirrell clinching with Bika.
The referee Jack Reiss did a good job of controlling a Bika’s rabbit punching. Dirrell was still hit with a lot of rabbit shots, but nearly as many in their first fight
With this win, Dirrell will soon be defending his new WBC crown against the winner of the September 20th WBC 168 pound eliminator bout between the recently knocked out George Groves and little know Christopher Rebrasse. Based on what I saw tonight of Dirrell, you’d have to pick Dirrell as a considerable favorite over both of those guys.
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Fighting with a huge gash over his left eye, WBC lightweight champion Omar Figueroa (24-0-1, 18 KOs) stopped #1 WBC Daniel Estrada (32-3-1, 24 KOs) by a 9th round TKO.
Figueroa, 24, dropped Estrada with a scorching right hand in the 9th. A badly hurt Estrada climbed off the canvas but was snowed under by a snowstorm of punches from Figueroa, resulting in referee Raul Caiz Sr halting the fight at 1:00 of the 9th.
Estrada and Figueroa clashed heads late in the 8th round, causing a horrific cut over Figueroa’s left eye. The referee said that it was caused by a punch rather than a head-butt, however. This put Figueroa in a situation where if he didn’t score a knockout the fight was going to be halted within a round two.
Estrada would have been given the victory. Luckily for Figueroa, he was able to land a big right hand to the head of Estrada to knock him down in the next round in the 9th. Figueroa lulled Estrada to sleep by staying on the outside for the opening part of the round. Estrada was busy targeting Figueroa’s bad cut and he wasn’t ready for when Figueroa suddenly pounded on him with a big right hand to drop him.
Figueroa had set an incredible fast pace in the first 7 rounds of the fight with his constant pressure. Estrada, a pure boxer, struggled under both the pressure and the outside heat.
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Showing a great deal of restraint, unbeaten heavyweight knockout artist Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) toyed with his hapless opponent 37-year-old Jason Gavern (25-16-4, 11 KOs) in stopping him at the end of the 4th round.
Deontay knocked Gavern down once in the 3rd and another time in the 4th. After the 4th round ended, Gavern quit on his stool rather than come out for more punishment by the hard hitting Deontay.
In the 3rd round, Deontay landed a beautiful sweeping right hand to the side of the head for the first knockdown. Gavern bellyached him being hit with a punch behind the head, but I saw it as a clean knockdown from a shot to the side of the head.
Deontay got to Gavern with a series of jabs followed by another looping right hand in the 4th that put Gavern down on all fours on the canvas. To his credit, he was able to get back up and finish the round. But after the round ended, Gavern opted not to come out for more punishment for a 5th round.
Overall, it was a good performance from Deontay. He showed a great deal of restraint by letting the fight go to the 4th, because he could have knocked Gavern out in the 1st if he had taken it out of 1st gear. But Deontay looked like he was content to get rounds in and treat the fight as a sparring session. Unfortunately for Deontay, Gavern couldn’t handle his power and opted not to continue to fight. It’s too bad because it would have been nice to see Deontay at least taken to the 8th or 9th round in order to test his stamina.
With this knockout, Deontay now has 32 consecutive knockouts to start his career. One can only wonder how long can keep up this incredible knockout streak. Is 50 straight knockouts achievable for Deontay? It could be. It’s never been done before, but the heavyweight division has never seen a puncher like Deontay.
Other boxing results on the card:
Jorge Linares KO2 Ira Terry
Alan Sanchez TKO 3 Jose Luis Ramirez Jr.
Dominic Breazeale TKO 2 Billy Zumbrun
Callum Smith TKO 1 Abraham Hernandez
Luke Campbell TKO 2 Steve Trumble
Fabian Maidana TKO 1 Phillip Soriano
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