Acosta Stops Antillon, Peter Crushes McGee – Boxing Results

By Boxing News - 07/26/2009 - Comments

antillon43454By Eric Thomas: In a huge upset, Miguel Acosta (25-9-2, 19 KOs) stopped number #1 ranked World Boxing Association lightweight contender Urbano Antillon (26-0, 19 KOs) in the 9th round tonight for the WBA interim lightweight title at the Grand Mayan, Nuevo Vallarta, in Nayarit, Mexico. Antillon, 26, got sloppy and was nailed by a huge right uppercut and taken out at 1:47 of the 9th.

Antillon, 26, had major problems with the movement from the 31-year-old Acosta, who at times looked and fought very similar to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Indeed, the fight looked like a replay of Ricky Hatton vs. Mayweather, with Antillon doing a credible imitation of Hatton in his plodding style of fighting and his inability to land much of anything. Acosta moved constantly in rounds one through eight, nailing Antillon with short left hooks and right hands frequently.

The fight wasn’t really close. I had Antillon winning only the 3rd and 8th rounds, and getting dominated the rest of the rounds. In the 8th round, referee Russell Mora twice warned Acosta for holding, even though he was hardly holding at all. Mostly, Acosta was moving and sharp shooting the slow moving Antillon. However, this allowed Acosta to slow down enough for Antillon to win a rare round.

The referee, however, really did Antillon no favors by taking away Acosta’s ability to clinch, because instead of clinching when cornered by Antillon, Acosta started nailing him with fast combination and big uppercuts. Antillon had been hurt earlier in the fight in the 5th round from a huge right hook from Acosta when he had him cornered and was lucky on that occasion that Acosta didn’t realize that he had him hurt and ready to go.

Antillon still didn’t seem with it in the 6th, and got a boxing lesson from Acosta, who glided around the ring in a Mayweather-esque fashion, tagging Antillon at will with combinations and making it look very easy. After the round, Antillon’s right eye was swollen underneath and he looked beaten and discouraged in his corner. Acosta continued his domination over Antillon in the 7th, moving and hitting Antillon.

During the last 30 seconds of the round, Antillon was able to land some nice right hands but it was hardly enough to make up for the rain of shots that he was hit with in the round. Given that the fight was in Antillon’s home country of Mexico, it’s no surprise that the crowd was screaming like mad each time that Antillon would land a shot.

But, believe me, the fight wasn’t remotely close regardless of what the judges had the fight scored at the time of the knockout. Antillon was taking a page out of the playbook of Ricky Hatton, fighting just like him and taking a one-sided beating just like he did against Mayweather.

In the 8th round, perhaps knowing that the fight was getting away from him, Antillon started pressuring more. The pressure, along with the referee Russell Mora stopping Acosta from clinching, allowed Antillon to capture the round. It was still very close though, because Acosta nailed him with punch after punch during the entire round and out-landed Antillon in the round.

In the 9th round, Antillon seemed to forget completely about his defense and plowed ahead trying to knock Acosta out. Acosta moved skillfully around the ring, tagging Antillon with short left hooks and right hands to the head. Antillon then backed Acosta up to the corner and while attempting to hit him with a left hand, he was nailed by a big right uppercut that sent Antillon down. He then sat up on one knee for several seconds before getting up at the count of nine. Referee Russell Mora took one look into the eyes of Antillon and decided to stop the fight at 1:47 of the 9th round.

Although Antillon wasn’t happy about the stoppage and said later on that he thought he could continue, there’s little doubt that Acosta would have quickly finished him off had the fight continued on. Acosta really had Antillon’s number and regardless of whether Antillon had made it out of the round, he would have just continued to take a beating in the following rounds. He just didn’t belong in the same ring with Acosta. After the fight, Acosta said that he was open to giving Antillon a rematch. However, I doubt that Antillon’s people will want him to tangle with Acosta again once they get a good look at the video of the fight. Acosta has a style that’s all wrong for a plodder like Antillon.

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Coming off of two straight losses, former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (31-3, 24 KOs) stopped journeyman Marcus McGee (22-17-1, 11 KOs) in the 3rd round, knocking him down three times in the process of scoring the stoppage win. The final knockdown was from a picture perfect left hook to the head that left McGee flat on his back on the canvas. Unfortunately, the knockdown before that was a right hand rabbit punch (a shot to the back of the head) that arguably shouldn’t have been considered a knockdown at all due to the placement of the punch.

Peter, 28, weighed in at a slender 243 for the fight, his best weight since his fight with Wladimir Klitschko four long years ago. Despite his slender weight, Peter still looked slow and lethargic in the fight, like a fighter who weighed much more than just 243. He needed to press the action more because Peter fought as if he was strolling around the park instead of fighting with some urgency. He got the knockout, I give him that, but the way Peter fought was too slow for my taste. He needs to be working on stepping up the pace so that he can beat the skilled heavyweights like the Klitschko brothers by overwhelming them with a frantic attack. Fighting in slow methodical manner won’t do it against the better heavyweights.

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World Boxing Association junior flyweight champion Giovani Segura (21-1-1, 17 KOs) defeated Juanito Rubillar Jr. (46-13-7, 22 KOs) by a 6th round stoppage after someone from Rubillar’s corner threw in the towel. Referee Luis Pabon stopped the bout at 2:04 of the 6th round. In hindsight, the bout perhaps should have been stopped three rounds earlier when it became clear that Rubillar, 32, had absolutely no chance against Segura and was just getting machined gunned apart by the champion.

This was like a fighter beating up a punching bag, because Rubillar was just hopelessly over-matched in this fight and getting tagged nonstop from the first second of every round until the last. In most rounds, Rubillar was only able to throw between three to 10 punches, missing most of them, whereas Segura was just unloading on Rubillar and hitting him with a god awful amount of shots. This was one of the worst mismatches I’ve seen in quite some time and it looked like child against a grown up.

Each round, Segura, 27, would come out and just start waylaying on Rubillar with shots, hitting him with double and triple hooks to the head and body and not giving him a second to recover. The fight was actually dull to watch because if was so one-sided and I found myself feeling sorry for Rubillar by the end of the fight.



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