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By Scott Gilfoid: #1 ranked WBC lightweight Jose Armando Santa Cruz (26-3, 15 KOs) made easy work of journeyman Miguel Angel Munguia (16-13-1, 13 KOs) in a 5th round TKO on Wednesday night at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Santa Cruz, 27, dominated every round except for the 1st, and put a hopelessly outclassed Munguia away with a leaping left hook to the midsection in the 5th round. Munguia rolled around on the canvas afterwards, in obvious pain from the shot to the midsection while referee Jack Reiss counted him out at 0:42 of the round.

Santa Cruz was coming off a controversial 12-round split decision to Joel Casamayor, who just happened to be in the audience on Wednesday night. The fight against Munguia was meant as a stay busy fight for Santa Cruz, a fight to stay sharp while he waits for a title shot. Going into the fight, Munguia had lost 12 out of his last 14 fights dating back to 2003. Perhaps knowing that he stood almost no chance of beating a fighter as good as Santa Cruz, Munguia came out on fire in the first round throwing a storm of punches at Santa Cruz. In all, Munguia threw an incredible 103 punches, yet landed only 19 mostly wide slapping to the head and body of Santa Cruz. Still, the punches had an effect on Santa Cruz, reddening his face and keeping him busy trying to block and unable to start his own offense up.

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By Chris Williams: Undefeated featherweight prospect Carlos Ivan Velasquez (8-0, 7 KOs) stopped David Vazquez (17-13-3, 10 KOs) in the 2nd round of a scheduled six-round bout on Wednesday night at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Velasquez, 23, staggered Vazquez with a big left hand in the 2nd round, and then finished him off with a flurry of shots while his back was against the ropes. Referee Raul Caiz moved in and halted the bout at 1:12 of the 2nd round after a final crushing right hand from Velasquez caused Vazquez to sag and collapse against the bottom ring rope.

Velasquez, 5’10”, gave top featherweight contender Yuriorkis Gamboa his last defeat in the 2006 at the Central America and Caribbean Games, which Velasquez would later go on to win the Gold medal at the games. At first hearing this, I thought perhaps the win was a fluke, because Gamboa has looked almost unbeatable since turning professional. However, as soon as the fight started, I could see how would have beaten Gamboa, since Velasquez’s speed, height, long reach and power would have been a huge problem for the tiny 5’5″ Gamboa to have to deal with effectively. Indeed, Velasquez looked every bit as good as Gamboa, perhaps even better because of his ability to punch from long distance due to his long reach and height.

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By Chris Williams: Welterweight Chas Symonds (14-1, 5 KOs) defeated Alexandrs Spitko (4-6, 3 KOs) in a quick controversial stopped in the 3rd round on Friday night at the Goresbrook Leisure Centre, Dagenham, in Essex. Both fighters were trading shots in the 3rd round, when Symonds landed several big shots that caused Spitko to back up to the ropes temporarily where he then clubbed him with a left hook that pushed him off balance against the ropes. At this point, the referee Jeff Hinds moved in and halted the fight at 2:16 of the round. However, Spitko, 22, looked fine and ready to continuing fight.

Neither fighter focused much on defense or the use of a jab in the fight, as they threw bombs at each from the very first round. Symonds, 26, appeared to get the better of the action in the first round, land some big hooks to the head and body. However, Spitko continued pressing the fight to Symonds and hitting him with big shots repeatedly. At first, it seemed as if Symonds would be too much for Spitko, because he was hitting him with some really big right hands in the 1st half of the round. However, Spitko returned fire in the second part of the round, and hit Symonds with some tremendous shots to the head. Symonds, a good fighter, didn’t focus much on his defense during any part of the round, which made it easy for Spitko to land his shots.

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By Manuel Perez: Light welterweight Terrance Cauthen (33-4, 9 KOs) defeated formerly unbeaten Alexis Camacho (16-1, 15 KOs) in a eight-round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Municipal Auditorium, in San Antonio, Texas. Cauthen, 32, a former Bronze Medalist in the 1996 Olympics, easily dominated his slower, limited opponent Camacho, befuddling him with constant movement, jabs and slick moves during most of the fight.

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By Chris Williams: Super middleweight contender Robert Stieglitz (32-2, 20 KOs) stopped Fawaz Nasir (13-3, 8 KOs) in the 5th round of a scheduled 8-round bout on Friday night at the Rundturm Arena, Cuxhaven, in Niedersachsen, Germany. The end came in the 5th round when Nasir suddenly stopped fighting and took a knee after getting hit with a hard combination from Stieglitz. Nasir, 28, grabbed for his shoulder, and immediately complained to the referee that he had injured it while fighting. The referee then promptly stopped the fight at 1:35 of the 5th round.

Stieglitz, 28, originally Ejsk, Russia and now living and fighting out of Germany, was coming off an 8th round stoppage in his last fight to Librado Andrade in a IBF super middleweight title eliminator bout in March. Still ranked high at number #4 in the IBF, Stieglitz was thought to be taking a step down in competition by facing the 28 year-old Nasir in an eight-round bout. However, the fight turned out to be much more competitive than most people thought it would be as Nasir, from Denmark, landed well frequent double jabs in the 1st round, hitting a surprised-looking Stieglitz often as he was coming forward.

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By Jim Dower: It looks as if trainer Emanuel Steward needs to go back to the drawing board with his young cruiserweight contender Johnathon Banks (20-0, 14 KOs) who looked incredibly poor in the process of defeating Italian Vincenzo Rossitto (36-6-2, 22 KOs) in a listless 12-round majority decision to win the vacant IBO cruiserweight title on Saturday night at the Color Line Arena, Altona, in Hamburg, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 115-113, 114-114 and 117-114. In this case, this is a fight in which the judges got it right; Banks, 26, appeared to do enough to win the fight based on his impressive early work in the first half of the fight, but he faded terribly in the second half of the fight, looking exhausted and almost as if he had injured himself.

Banks’ turnaround was so dramatic and sudden, that the referee Jack Reiss asked him if he had injured his hand in the 7th round, after noticing that Banks had stopped punching as often and had started uncharacteristically backing up into the ropes and covering up.

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By Manuel Perez: IBF light flyweight champion Ulises Solis (27-1-2, 20 KOs) successfully defended his title with a 12-round unanimous decision over challenger Glenn Donaire (17-4-1, 9 KOs) on Saturday night at the Palenque De La Expo, Hermosillo, in Sonora, Mexico. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 120-108 and 120-107. However, the fight was much closer than the scored indicated as Donaire appeared to win four rounds at the minimum with his harder shots, and more aggressive fighting style compared to Solis, who was more focused on counter punching and boxing. The fight had countless head clashes, at least one -two in every round, and eventually a point was deducted from Donaire late in the fight. Much of the head clashes were caused by the fact that both fighters were often lunging forward with punches at the same time, causing both to bang heads frequently.

Solis, 26, was the more active fighter in the first round as he pumped out a fast jab constantly at Donaire. Though both fighters were the same height, Donaire looked much larger and stronger than Solis, and his punches were much harder as well. He stalked Solis around the ring in the first and hit him with several big shots in the round with right hands.

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By Chris Williams: Undefeated light middleweight prospect David Lemieux (9-0, 9 KOs) kept up his perfect record of knockout victories with a 2nd round stoppage of Oswaldo Gonzalez (1-9-1, 1 KOs) on Friday night at the Uniprix Stadium, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Lemieux, 19, dropped Gonzalez with a crushing left hand in the 2nd round. After Gonzalez got up off the canvas, received a standing eight count, he was met with a storm of tremendous shots from Lemieux, which backed Gonzalez up to his corner. Things didn’t get any easy there, for Lemieux bombarded Gonzalez with a flurry of speedy shots to the midsection ending with another big left hand to the head, dropping Gonzalez to the canvas for the second and final time in the round. At that point, referee Gerry Bolen stepped in and halted the fight at 1:53.

Though he’s only had nine fights, the murderous punching Lemieux is quickly proving himself as one of the hardest punchers in the light middleweight division. With a left hook that few other light middleweights can match, Lemieux has destroyed all nine of his opponents to date, and not giving any of them much of a chance to stay in with him long enough to expose his rather poor defense.

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By Jason Kim: In somewhat of a shocker, two-division champion Daniel Santos (32-3-1, 23 KOs) pulled off an upset on Friday night when he stopped WBA light middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (30-1, 19 KOs) in the 6th round of a scheduled 12-round bout at the Uniprix Stadium, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Santos, 32, rather easily controlled most of the fight, knocked Alcine down right a right-left combination in the 6th round, sending Alcine, 32, down flat on his back on the canvas. He tried to get up, but collapsed back onto the canvas before he could make it to his feet. Referee Marlon Wright then waived off the fight at 2:10 of the 6th round.

Although some people saw this as a mild upset, it perhaps was meant to be for Alcine had fought much less impressive competition in his nine-year boxing career as Santos, and had few of the same credentials as the former 1996 Olympian Bronze medalist to compare with. Indeed, Alcine didn’t match up well with Santos coming into the fight, neither having fought the same competition nor come close to achieving what Santos, a two-division champion, has accomplished in his long 12-year career.

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