warrington5 By Scott Gilfoid: In a card filled with mismatches from top to bottom, #8 IBF featherweight contender Josh Warrington (22-0, 4 KOs) easily defeated #9 IBF Joel Brunker (28-2, 16 KOs) to retain his Commonwealth featherweight title at the First Direct Arena, Leeds, England. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 120-108 and 120-108.

I hate to say it but I think Warrington is a very, very vulnerable fighter who can’t punch. Had he been in the ring tonight with someone with punching power like Nicholas Walters, Jayson Velez, Leo Santa Cruz, Abner Mares, and Vasyl Lomachenko, he would have likely been battered and knocked out. Warrington does good against fighters picked out for him by his promoter Eddie Hearn, who can’t punch, but I think the party will be over for Warrington once he’s forced to fight someone that can crack eggs. I’m just wondering how long Hearn will be able to match him against soft opponents before he’s finally forced to put him in with someone with some power. My guess is Hearn will make it delay that inevitable for as long as possible.

Brunker, 29, fought poorly throughout and did very little other than soak up punches all night long. I don’t see why the IBF had Brunker ranked in their top 10, because I don’t see this guy as a top 15 contender, and definitely not a No.9 ranked guy, which is where the IBF had him.

“This was a world class fight against a world class fighter,” Warrington’s promoter Eddie Hearn said after the fight. Now that he’s shown that he’s a world class fighter 100%. Lee Selby’s a brilliant fighter. There’s no reason why Warrington-Warrington can’t take place next year.”

The promoter for Warrington, Eddie Hearn, put on a card that didn’t have any competitive fights as far as concerned, at least the notable fights. It was all mismatches, including the Warrington-Brunker fight.

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In an example of very soft match-making and a very sick mismatch, #15 WBO Martin Murray (32-2-1, 15 KOs) defeated the much smaller 36-year-old former junior middleweight Jose Miguel Torres (31-7, 27 KOs) by a 5th round knockout.

Murray knocked Torres down 7 times in the fight. Referee Howard John Foster finally waived the horrible mismatch off at 2:19 of the 5th round. Torres could have continued to fight, but Foster halted the fight because Torres kept going down from the lightest of taps. Murray wasn’t even hitting Torres with big shots, and the guy was still going down.

Torres was knocked own once in the 1st, 3rd and 5th, and twice in the 2nd and 4th rounds.

During the clinches, Murray lean his much heavier weight on Torres, causing him to go down from his inability to support Murray’s weight. I don’t know how much Murray weighed tonight, but he looked like a light heavyweight fighting a small junior middleweight.

“I’m at my real weight now,” Murray said after the fight. He was hard to pin down. I was hoping to get him out sooner.”

“For sure, he [Murray] had two fights in eight weeks,” Murray’s promoter Eddie Hearn said. “Torres, I was disappointed in him. He [Murray] wants a fight against Arthur Abraham. I’d like to keep him over here in the UK. You’ve got George Groves and James DeGale. He’s ready for a big fight.”

Murray wants a world title shot against WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, but Murray is only ranked at No.15 with the WBO. The only way that he’s going to get that fight is if Hearn can convince Abraham’s promoters at Sauerland Events to have Murray get a shot in an optional title defense rather than someone else. I doubt that Abraham will take the fight, because when he fights voluntary defenses, he usually takes on soft opponents. Murray isn’t a great fighter, but he’s huge for the super middleweight division. With the way he likes to lean on his opponents in a clinch, Murray could have Abraham falling down on the canvas all night long like Torres was tonight without even getting hit.

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Cruiserweight contender Tony Bellew (25-2-1, 16 KOs) defeated Latvian journeyman Arturs Kulikauskis (16-27-1, 15 KOs) by a 5th round knockout. The referee halted the fight in the 5th due to Kulikauskis taking too much punishment.

I don’t think it was a good stoppage because Kulikauskis was making Bellew miss all night long, and making him look really bad. The fight started becoming one-sided in the 4th round when Bellew nailed Kulikauskis with a big right hand immediately following a clash of heads. Kulikauskis was grabbing his head after the head-butt, and Bellew nailed him while he wasn’t ready for the shot. It looked like a cheap shot from Bellew, but he kind of needed to do something because he looked so uncoordinated in the fight up to that point in missing a massive amount of punches.

After the fight, Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn said “The IBF contest is going on between Yoan Pablo Hernandez and Victor Emilio Ramirez on October 2nd. We’ve got the winner of the fight.”

Former super middleweight champion Carl Froch, who worked the fight for Sky Sports as an analyst, said he can see Bellew winning a world title at cruiserweight against the winner of the Hernandez-Ramirez fight. I don’t see either of those guys as being any good compared to the younger cruiserweight contenders that has emerged recently. Bellew might be able to beat the winner of that fight, but I don’t see Bellew being able to hold onto the IBF strap for long. Once he faces the likes of Krzystof Wlodarczyk, Rakhim Chakhkiev, Ola Afolabi, Thabiso Mchunu, Dmitry Kudryashov, Olesandr Usyk, Ilunga Makabu and Noel Gevor, I see Bellew losing to all of those guys.