World Weekend Boxing Roundup: Postol, Broner, Pedraza Win
It was a good Saturday night at the fights at two locations in America and we kick off this week’s report at the outdoor venue StubHub Center in Carson, California.
That’s where upstart contender Viktor Postol, 28-0 (12), shocked former world title challenger Lucas Matthysse, 37-4 (34), with a tenth round KO to capture the vacant WBC light welterweight belt.
This was an exceedingly ugly fight for the first half of the contest as the much taller Postol kept his adversary at a distance with movement and then locked the arm of Matthysse anytime the Argentine slugger got in close, prompting Matthysse to repeatedly rabbit punch.
In the sixth and seventh rounds, Matthysse finally provided some excitement in the rather lacklustre affair by landing some big shots, which Postol took surprisingly well.
By the eighth frame, Postol began to add an offense to his efforts and Matthysse was getting tagged while he attempted in vain to repeat his earlier success.
In the tenth, Matthysse stepped up his efforts but near the end of the round was caught by a pinpoint right hand counter that caught him flush on the eye.
“La Maquina” crumpled to a knee where he stayed and was counted out at 2:58 of the tenth.
Postol displayed good skill throughout the bout in leveraging his height and reach advantages, giving Matthysse very little to work with, and proved that he could be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
There was a very good clash on the undercard in a crossroads ten round contest between aging former two-weight world champion Humberto Soto, 65-9-2 (35), and prospect Antonio Orozco, 23-0 (15), at light welterweight.
Despite a year out of the ring, Soto started well, zipping Orozco with single shots and combinations in the early rounds but as the fight wore on, 35 year old Soto started to tire and the youth advantage of the 27 year old Orozco became a growing problem for “La Zorrita”.
Orozco was simply the younger, stronger, fresher fighter as his body shots in particular seemed to sap the energy from Soto, who was down from a beltline shot in the ninth, which was ruled to be a low blow, costing Orozco a point.
Although he had his moments in the latter stages of the contest, Soto was getting battered in the tenth and final round, hitting the canvas again, in what was ruled a slip but looked more like a delayed reaction from getting nailed by a hard shot.
When the scores were read, Orozco captured a surprisingly wide 98-91, 97-92, 97-92 UD.
Heading east, we find ourselves in the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio, where there were two title fights on the bill.
Former three-weight world champ Adrien Broner, 31-2 (23), came back from a loss to Shawn Porter earlier this year to put a drubbing on Russian southpaw Khabib Allakhverdiev, 19-2 (9), to annex the vacant WBA light welter strap.
The normally boastful Broner took a vow of silence during the pre-fight media buildup to this fight but did his talking with his fists in the ring, controlling the tempo of the fight and the majority of the exchanges.
Former WBA champ Allakhverdiev, who lost his crown to Jesse Vargas last year, was simply outboxed in every round as the far more experienced Broner was just too quick.
Perhaps the year and a half absence from the ring added to Allakhverdiev’s troubles but by the 12th round, referee Harvey Dock had seen enough one way traffic and halted the fight at 2:23.
Broner now has won titles at super feather, lightweight, welter and light welter and should be a few lower profile defenses away from a big unification contest.
On the undercard, IBF super feather titlist Jose Pedraza, 21-0 (12), survived a rocky first defense against experienced former world title challenger Edner Cherry, 34-7-2 (19), to pull off a controversial split decision by scores of 117-111, 117-111 and 112-116.
The champion was successful in the early going but had trouble when Cherry began to close distance and outfought the champion from Puerto Rico.
Given the nature of the bout, expect a rematch in early 2016.