By Sean Jones: IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey (29-2, 26 KOs) retained his title in stopping former WBO lightweight champion Ray Beltran (36-9-1, 22 KOs) in the eighth round on Friday night on ESPN at the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula, California.
(Photo Credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank)
Commey dropped the 38-year-old Beltran in the eighth round. The fight was stopped at 0:54 by the referee. Beltran was knocked down four times in the fight. You’ve got to give Beltran a lot of credit for getting up all those times. He showed a ton of heart in getting up each time he was knocked down by the younger, bigger, and stronger Commey.
The good and the bad in Commey’s performance tonight:
– Positives: Commey showed that he could throw nonstop punches without gassing out. He was a virtual robot tonight with the way he was unloading on Beltran with machine-like shots without showing any hint of gassing out. You’ve got to like that from Commey. He’s capable of throwing a massive amount of shots to wear down his opponents. His punching power was excellent tonight. Commey hit Beltran with massive shots in repeatedly dropping him. No one had done that to Beltran since early part of his career. Terence Crawford couldn’t stop Beltran when they fought in 2014. He was forced to go the full 12 round distance to beat him. As a contender level fighter, there’s a lot to like with Commey’s performance. However, he’s a champion, and he’s going to have to do a lot better than what we saw from him tonight when he likely meets up with Teofimo Lopez later this year.
– Negatives: Commey’s defensive skills were nonexistent tonight. He was getting hit with a lot of silly shots from Beltran that he shouldn’t have been. On a number of occasions in which he had Beltran hurt, he would walk into a left hook and get hurt himself. Commey had no defense for Beltran’s left hook in the fight. If Commey can’t fix that defensive flaw in his game, he’s not going to last long against the winner of the Teofimo Lopez vs. Masayoshi Nakatani fight later this year.
Commey respectful of Beltran
“Beltran showed why he was a champion. He’s a great fighter who showed it against me tonight,” Commey said. “I was happy to get the job done and defend my title for the first time. It looks like Teofimo Lopez is next, but he has a job to do first.”
Commey to face Teofimo Lopez vs. Masayoshi Nakatani winner
With the win, Commey will now wait to face the winner of the July 19th fight between unbeaten Teofimo Lopez (13-0, 11 KOs) and Masayoshi Nakatani (18-0, 12 KOs). The way that Commey, 31, fought tonight, he’d likely lose to both of those fighters.
Commey looked crude, vulnerable, and there to be beaten. He was fortunate that his opponent was 38-year-old Beltran, who has no business fighting at 135 at this point in his career. Beltran failed to make weight on Thursday at the weigh-in with him coming in 1.8 pounds over the 135 pound limit at 136 3/4 lbs.
Another disappointing loss for Beltran
The loss for the 38-year-old Beltran was his second in his last three fights. He lost to Jose Pedraza by a 12 round unanimous decision last August in a fight that he was dethroned as the WBO 135 pound champion. It would be a good idea for Beltran to tell his promoters at Top Rank to stop putting him in at lightweight, because he clearly has outgrown this division.
Beltran’s career is going to implode if Top Rank continues to match him up against lightweights, because he clearly has outgrown the weight class. At this point in Beltran’s career, he’s not going to be a world champion at 135 or 140. But you can argue that Commey’s time as a world champion is going to expire later this year when he faces the winner of the Teofimo Lopez vs. Masayoshi Nakatani fight. But at least Commey is younger than Beltran at 32, and he can still make weight for the 135 pound division.
As long as Beltran stays at 140, he’ll be able to fight at a higher level against some of Top Rank’s fighters like Jose Carlos Ramirez. Ideally, Beltran needs to go after WBO 140 pound champion Maurice Hooker. He’s the weak link among the current champions at 140. Beltran isn’t going to beat Ramirez, IBF champ Josh Taylor or WBA champion Regis Prograis. Those guys are too good. It would be the ame thing for Commey if he moved up in weight. He’d be lost against the good fighters.
The only beatable guy among the champions is Hooker. Right now, Commey is keeping the IBF 135 pound title warm until it’s taken from him likely by Teofimo. Top Rank plans on matching Teofimo against Vasiliy Lomachenko in early 2020 after Loma beats Luke Campbell to claim the vacant World Boxing Council lightweight title that was recently vacated by Mikey Garcia.
Carlos Adames defeats Patrick Day – RESULTS
Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Carlos Adames (18-0, 14 KOs) defeated the game but severely limited Patrick Day (17-3-1, 6 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision in the co-feature bout. The scores were 97-93, 97-93 and 98-91. The first two scores were extremely kind to Day, because he only appeared to win one to two rounds at best.
Boxing News 24 scored it 98-91 for 2012 U.S Olympian Adames. It wasn’t that Adames was that good. It was that Day was that bad. Adames didn’t look good at all in the fight, as he took shots that would have been knockout blows had they been delivered by the elite level fighters in the 154 pound weight class.
Miguel Angel Gonzalez defeats Saul Rodriguez
In an embarrassing loss, Saul Rodriguez (23-1-1, 17 KOs) suffered his first career defeat in losing to Miguel Angel gonzalez (25-4, 22 KOs) by a by a one-punch knockout in round three of their 10 round scheduled super featherweight fight tonight. Earlier in the fight, Gonzalez knocked Rodriguez down in the first round with a left to the head. Gonzalez might not have ever recovered from that big shot.
Other boxing results:
Raymond Muratalla TKO 1 Agustine Mauras
Elvis Rodriguez technical draw 1 Joaquin Chavez
Chris Zavala UD 6 Prisco Marquez
Dmitry Yun UD 4 Jose Antonio Meza
David Kaminsky, UD 4 Osbaldo Gonzalez