Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis (35-0, 31 KOs) made easy work of little-known fringe contender Uisma Lima (14-2, 10 KOs), knocking him out in the first round in his debut at junior middleweight to win the WBA interim 154-lb title on Saturday night at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Referee Shawn Clark halted the fight at 1:58 of round one.
Ennis, 28, walked through a big left hand from Lima and then dropped him with a hard shot. After Lima got up, ‘Boots’ tore into him, unloading with a flurry of punches to put him down for the second time in the round.
Surprisingly, the referee didn’t halt despite Lima looking in bad shape. When the action resumed, Ennis teed off on Uisma, hitting him at will with unanswered shots, leaving the referee with no choice but to halt the fight.
After the fight, Ennis called out WBC interim junior middleweight champion Vergil Ortiz Jr. next. He said if he can’t get him, he wants Sebastian Fundora or Bakhram Murtazaliev.
Results
Guido Vianello (14-3-1, 12 KOs) used his experience advantage and aggression to knock out previously unbeaten Alexis Barriere (12-1, 10 KOs) in the fifth round in a heavyweight fight. The 2016 Olympian Vianello, 31, came into tonight’s fight with his career on the line, but he rose to the occasion.
Canadian Barriere was getting the better of the 6’6″ Vianello through the third round, using his left hand counter shots to nail the Italian repeatedly. Guido looked like a completely different person coming out for round four, as he went on the attack, nailing the southpaw Barriere repeatedly with hard right hands. Late in the round, Vianello stunned Barriere with a right hand to the head. He then followed up with a barrage of punches to put Barriere down.
The bell sounded to save the Canadian Alexis from getting, but one could tell from looking at him that he wasn’t going to survive the next round. In the fifth, Guido started where he left off, pummeling the defenseless Barriere with shots. He then nailed him with a right that grazed his left temple, sending him down flat on his back. Referee Ricky Gonzalez then waved it off. The time of the stoppage was at 26 seconds of round five.
Tahmir Smalls (16-0, 11 KOs) won a highly controversial 10-round unanimous decision over the better-skilled and faster Jose Roman (14-2, 6 KOs) in a welterweight fight. There are no words to describe how poor a decision this was. Smalls was fortunate to get the win because he appeared to lose.
Fighting in his hometown of Philadelphia, Smalls, 26, dropped Roman with a big right-hand bomb, followed by a left in round three. Roman got up and barely made it out of the round by holding and moving. Interestingly, from that point on, Roman dominated the remainder of the fight, seemingly sweeping rounds 4-10. He was hitting and making Smalls look amateurish much of the time. The scores were 98-91, 96-93, and 95-94. Boxing News 24 had it for Roman 9-1. The only round he appeared to lose was the third.
Dennis Thompson (8-0, 5 KOs) used his size and power to defeat previously unbeaten Sean Diaz (9-1, 2 KOs) by a six-round split decision in super bantamweight action. Thompson walked Diaz down, using constant pressure and heavy shots to control most of the round. Diaz used too much showboating for the crowd, trying to throw Thompson off his game. It didn’t work.
The scores
- 60-53 – Thompson
- 57-56 – Diaz
- 57-56 – Thompson
In round five, Diaz was penalized for holding. He’d been doing that throughout the fight, and it finally caught up to him.