BOXING: Free TV Wrapup 9/12-13

Telemundo, Telefutura, TYC Sports, and Showtime all showed free cards this weekend of varying quality, and I've actually found enough time in between dealing with our new pets (3 cats!) to watch them all.

8/12:

TELEFUTURA -

Here was a show with two undefeated prospects with Oscar paying their bills, and so there's some hope there that we'll have a decent show. Bzzzz. Wrong. Ex-Olympian Rock Allen was first out there and he drew another no hoper in a long line of them with Contender Season 3 competitor Brian Vera's brother Gilbert. This is year 4 of him being a prospect and he's still fighting guys that are 9-2 in 8 rounders. I mean, c'mon, what does that say about the faith his team has in him? Anyhow, Vera provides ample competition and forces Rock Allen to really try and work to win. Rock simply doesn't have the power in his punching to actually do lots of damage to Vera and thus stop him. So what we have in this fight was a one sided domination by Rock Allen where he does nothing to make the crowd believe he can stop Vera and gives Vera ample opportunites to fight back, as ineffective as it generally was.

The main event was between 22-0, 21 KO Argentinian Lucas Martin Matthysse in a bout with journeyman Rogerio Castaneda Jr. Castaneda has been in against, well, a ton of dudes. In fact, he was recently on Versus against one of the Peterson Bros. in a dull affair. This was actually pretty interesting because Castaneda provided some resistance until an accidental headbutt cut him and ended the fight in the 3rd. Bah.

Also making the show was a bout between 0-0 local boys Edgar Portillo and Pedro Sanchez won early in the 1st by Portillo. Fun and harmless. Karl Dargan/Jose Lozada showed up minus round 1 on the telecast as well after being taped early in the night. I barely paid attention to that, to be honest. Not the best show in Telefutura's history.

TELEMUNDO:

Adolfo Landeros has lost to plenty of good fighters and not so good fighters, so that a fighter such as him was brought in for the young Wilfredo Vasquez Jr. is no big surprise. He's the best guy Vasquez has ever fought but was nowhere near good enough. Solid back and forth for the first two rounds but Vasquez' athleticism, power, and size was far too much. Landeros ended up getting hurt repeatedly before finally getting stopped in round 8.

Also making TV was Roberto Lopez/Jonathan Robles. Robles ended up getting KOed brutally in round 3 after looking like garbage pretty much the whole bout. I think Michael Mendez/Jean Petit Homme may have made TV but I stopped paying attention around this point.

TYC SPORTS:

Opener for the night is Billi Godoy/Pablo Cortes. Cortes has a bunch of tats, Godoy doesn't. Also, Godoy is 11-0 and Cortes is 6-7. So, you'd think with differing records like that, Godoy is likely to win. And you'd be right. Cortes comes straight forward all night and in spite of never going more than 6 before, goes the distance of 10 rounds. He also didn't win a single round. Godoy has not much pop and for being a boxer/puncher type, he lacks the lateral movement and hands to do something.

Main event saw Aldo Rios take on Nazareno Ruiz for the Argentinan Lightweight title. Rios has fought only 4 times out of 49 fights outside of Argentina. Guess where he got his four losses? Ruiz is 26-11 and lost to Rios back in 2003. Good fight with Ruiz having moments of serious offense but Rios was generally able to beat Ruiz to the punch and win most of the rounds and begin to wear him down towards the end of the bout. No stoppage though in this fight, and the event left TV late.

SHOWTIME:

Oh man, I was so bummed when I heard that Guzman/Campbell was off due to weight issues with the former super bantamweight Guzman. But the card wasn't cancelled, so there was still something to watch.

Timothy Bradley/Edner Cherry, like the other bouts, wasn't one I really wanted to keep a scorecard over. Seemed pretty pointless with the fight being almost a total washout for Bradley. Cherry only won the 4th cleanly and got knocked down in the 7th (?) from a picture perfect right hand counter. Cherry recovered quickly and performed well down the stretch, but it was nowhere near enough to win. Timothy Bradley's win helps his case at 140 for validity, most certainly. He basically copied the success of Paulie Malignaggi, and given that he's a top 3 fighter at 140, that's a very good thing. However, there's a lot of deeply underrated talent at the weight that can pose a threat in the future should he get matched up with them (Naoufel Ben Rabah, Ricardo Torres, Randall Bailey, Kid Diamond, Willy Blain, etc).