By Jim Dower: In one of the most exciting fights of the year, junior middleweights Jesus Soto-Karass (28-10-4, 18 KOs) and Yoshihiro Kamegai (26-3-2, 23 KOs) fought to a grueling 10 round draw on Friday night at the LA Fight Club card in Los Angeles, California at the Belasco Theater.
Both fighters stood and slugged it out from the 1st round of the fight. Kamegai appeared to have the better punching power of the two, but Soto-Karass did a good job of landing counter shots that impressed the judges enough for them to score it a draw rather than a win for Kamegai. It was one of those punishing fights where both guys took a bad beating.
The judges scored the fight 97-93 for Kamegai, 96-94 for Soto-Karass, and 95-95. I had Kamegai winning the fight by two rounds. However, many of the rounds were hard to score due to both fighters connecting with big shots.
Kamegai has had it tough in his fights in the United States. Besides tonight’s fight, which easily could have gone his way, he also lost to Robert Guerrero, Alfonso Gomez and Johan Perez in fights that were absolute wars in the U.S. Kamegai gave all three of those fighters huge problems with his power and pressure.
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Undefeated #7 WBC light heavyweight contender Vyacheslav “Lion Heart-Chigonsky” Shabranskyy (16-0, 13 KOs) used his big power top obliterate the normally durable journeyman Derrick Findley (23-19-1, 15 KOs) in stopping him before the 4th round when he quit on his stool after the 3rd round. The bigger and stronger Shabranskyy knocked Findley down in the 3rd round with a hard body shot. Findley looked in bad shape after the knockdown. He was able to survive the heavy flurry of punches from Shabranskyy, but he clearly didn’t want any more after the round had ended.
Other boxing results on the card:
Genaro Gamez TKO 1 Archie Weah
Niko Valdez TKLO 1 Roberto Ramirez
Jonathan Navarro TKO 2 Tavorus Teague
Jousce Gonzalez TKO 1 Noe Perez