By Jim Dower: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (33-1-1, 13 KOs) stopped an over-matched Brandon Rios (33-3-1, 24 KOs) in the 9th round on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley knocked the 170lb Rios down twice with body shots in the 9th to get the stoppage. Rios looked tired, embarrassed and hurt ad the fight was halted by referee Tony Weeks at 2:49 of the 9th.
Rios said immediately after the fight that he plans on retiring from the sport. As bad as Rios looked tonight, you can’t blame him. He had been out of action for 10 months going into tonight’s fight, and he sure looked like it.
“You got me with a great body shot. You got me with a great punch,” Rios told Bradley after the fight, according to ESPN.com. “I really respect you.”
Rios was vulnerable to everything that Bradley threw in the fight. It wasn’t just the body punches that gave him problems in this fight. Rios was getting nailed with head shots, and he was definitely troubled by them in the 8th round. Bradley nailed Rios twice with two big right hands in that round and he was clearly hurt.
In the 6th round, Bradley connected on four straight left hooks to the head of Rios. He didn’t even lift his guard during that short sequence to try and block some of the shots. He was just like a punching bag for him.
“I saw I hurt him early to the body,” Bradley said. “I kind of wanted to get him not thinking about it for a while, and then I want back downstairs.”
I think Bradley would have scored a knockout even if he focused on throwing head shots, because when he started to go after Rios a little bit in the 8th, he was hurting him. That was with Bradley not even trying to land a lot of shots. If Bradley had gone after Rios really hard with head shots in rounds 9 through 12, I think he would have knocked him out with punches upstairs.
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WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (5-1, 3 KOs) totally schooled an over-matched #7 WBO Romulo Koasicha (25-5, 15 KOs) in halting him in the 10th round. Lomachenko landed a flurry of body shots to put the 24-year-old Koasicha down with a left to the body.
Lomachenko treated the fight more like a sparring match than an actual battle. He basically toyed with the over-matched Koasicha through most of the fight. Lomachenko wasn’t loading up on his shots. He was mostly focusing on throwing with speed, pot-shotting, moving around a lot, and clowning.
Starting from the 7th, Lomachenko started to sit down on more of his shots than he had in the earlier rounds. He was able to take advantage of Koasicha fighting with his back against the ropes, and this enabled him to land a lot of punches.
If Lomachenko wants to become a bigger star in the sport of boxing, he’s going to need to try and more aggressively like Gennady Golovkin because that’s the type of style that the fans want to see. Lomachenko looked like he was patterning himself after someone like Floyd Mayweather Jr. than Golovkin, and I think that’s a mistake on his part. Lomachenko needs to really go after his opponents to try and score early knockouts. Lomachenko would also be better off moving up to super featherweight and then lightweight so he can fight guys like Orlando Salido, Nicholas Walters, Felix Verdejo, Terry Flanagan, and Jorge Linares.
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Featherweight contender Miguel Marriaga (21-1, 18 KOs) bounced back from a defeat at the hands of Nicholas Walters in his last fight in June to defeat Guillermo Avila (14-5, 11 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72.
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Undefeated light welterweight Mike Reed (17-0, 10 KOs) kept his unbeaten record intact with a 7th round knockout over an outclassed Rondale Hubbert (10-4-1, 6 KOs).
Reed knocked Hubbert down in the 7th round. Once the action resumed, Reed finished him off with a short barrage of power shots the resulted in the fight being stopped by referee Kenny Bayless at 1:09 of the 7th round with Hubbert still on his feet.
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Undefeated welterweight prospect Egidijus Kavaliauskas (10-0, 9 KOs) crushed an over-matched Jake Giuriceo (17-5-1, 4 KOs) in winning a 1st round knockout. Kavaliauskas, who comes from Lithuania, knocked Giuriceo with a scorching right hand to the head. The fight was then halted by referee Russell Mora at 1:00 of the 1st round.
Kavaliauskas, 27, will be back inside the ring later this month on November 20th against an opponent still to be determined on the undercard of the Gilberto Ramirez vs. Gevorg Khatchikian fight card at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Chelsea Ballroom.
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