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Ortiz Stops McKinson, Next Stop Title?

Vergil Ortiz Jr., the undefeated welterweight who has won all 19 of his fights by knockout stopped Michael McKinson three seconds into the ninth round, marking the longest time he had been in the ring in his career, his previous longest bout was stopped in eight rounds.

What did we learn? Well, Ortiz is really strong, and also at times Ortiz doesn’t move his head as his defense can be his offense in spurts. Another thing to note, McKinson is a spoiler, a guy who makes everyone look bad, and even in a losing effort, McKinson accomplished his career goal of making Ortiz not look like a million bucks. McKinson in a losing effort planted seeds of doubt in many ways.

As for the bout, it was simple to score. McKinson probably won the first two rounds, and lost every round after, as the power of Ortiz was too much.

The fight was an entertaining placeholder fight, a term coined by Jake Donovan, an excellent writer, which basically means this fight was a fight set up to lead to another bout for Ortiz. 

The bout was a WBA welterweight eliminator as the WBA has three forms of world champions, per BoxRec.com, Vergil Ortiz, a gold champion, Eimantas Stanionis WBA World, and Errol Spence Jr., the Super World. Though the Spence Jr. fight would be fun, I think a bout between Stanionis and Ortiz would be a great one, hopefully, we can get it in quarter four. 

The magic number for prospects is typically twenty. Ortiz isn’t a prospect, but 20 tends to be the number that seperates the elite from the rest, so I am eager to see what his next bout is.

undercard

2012 Olympian Marlen Esparza defended her unified world titles at flyweight which are the WBC and WBA, against Eva Guzman. The fight was close and Guzman got no benefit of the doubt on the cards, beyond that Seniesa Estrada, who recently left Golden Boy was scheduled for this spot but left for Top Rank Inc., a few weeks ago, marking Esparza’s appearance on the card, a last minute call for her to fill in as the co-feature. 

Blair “The Flair” Cobbs raised serious questions about the mental health, well-being, and the place former world champion Maurice “Mighty Mo” Hooker is at. Cobbs dropped Hooker a few times in the first two rounds, only for Hooker to seemingly follow Cobbs around, but not be offensive. It was the biggest win of Cobbs’ career, as he is a personality, as well as a talented boxer, and for Hooker, who dedicated the fight to Stacey Snyder his beloved former photographer and close friend, and also missed weight by three pounds, the fight brought more concern than anything else.

Super lightweight Alex Martin got a bizarre decision over Hank Lundy, as the veteran of the sport, Lundy seemingly outboxed Martin. 

Bektemir “Bek The Bully” Melikuziev’s comeback continues after his KO loss to Gabriel Rosado, as he got a third-round KO. Bek The Bully’s body shots are nasty. 

Super featherweight Floyd Schofield, who signed with Golden Boy Promotions this week officially got a fifth-round stoppage. A fight I’d like to see in the future would be a clash of undefeated fighters between Floyd Schofield vs. Mykell Gamble. 

Conlan

The two-time Olympian Michael Conlan, who won bronze at the 2012 Olympic Games, got a ten-round decision over Miguel Marriaga. The performance was both good and bad. 

The good, Conlan outboxed Marriaga for most of the fight, and showed power at points dropping Marriaga in rounds seven, eight and nine. The bad Marriaga caught Conlan late in the tenth round which looked similar to the trend set in the Leigh Wood bout. 

Conaln is a great talent as a boxer, the next question is, can he be a great professional boxer? I am not sure? I know he can win a title, especially a vacant one, but his stamina issues will be a major probably especially amongst the biggest punchers in the division. 

Conlan might be someone who benefited from Conor McGregor’s success as boxing was looking for an Irish boxer to have the same beloved style and following of McGregor. Conlan flipping off the judges at the Olympic made him look the part, and Conlan is good – but is he the star he was marketed as, I am not sure. 

Sacramento Results

Nasser Navoroni’s Uppercut Promotions continues their heavily attended fight series taking place at the DoubleTree Hotel in Sacramento, California, on Friday, August 5th, as a conclussion to summer prior to the start of the school year which is soon set to begin.

In the main event it was super welterweight Amari Jones’ time to shine in front of Northern California fans with yet another success stopping Michael Lemelle in the third round via a technical knockout. Jones has now started his career with the impressive undefeated record of seven wins, all by way of knockout.

Super lightweight Cain Sandoval got a second-round knockout over Daniel Evangelista 
Jr, who had six-times the experience of Sandoval. Sandoval dropped Evangelista in the first round as well.

Sandoval is becoming an impressive fighter from Northern California as he is undefeating winning all of his fights by knockout and with only two of them going to the second-round. In 2016, world title contender, Isaac Cruz stopped Evangelista in three rounds, one less than Sandoval.

Light heavyweight Angel Chavez got a third round knockout over Eljeria Neno Portee. Chavez was in a scheduled six-rounder and has been featured on Premier Boxing Champions undercards.

Super featherweight Shamar Canal of Devin Haney Promotions recorded a first-round knockout over Dan Hernandez

An entertaining opening bout saw a good one between two lightweights as Sergio Vega and Cmaje Ramseur fought to a majority draw as two of the three judges saw the bout 38-38, whereas one saw the bout 39-37 for Ramseur.

ProBox

Antonio Moran defeated Michael Dutchover as well as Kendo Castaneda defeated Joseph Fernandez in a thriller, please watch round nine if you’re a super hardcore. 

Antonio Moran will face Kendo Castaneda for winner to be crowned in the tournament, on November 4th. Fun series of bouts that have occured in the “Last-Chance” tournament.

Club Shows

Chelsey Anderson came back from losing the first two rounds to pick a unanimous decision against Aida Satybaldinova. The eight-round mini-classic should be a nominee for club fight of the year amongst others, and one of the best women’s bouts in boxing as well. Anderson, who is trained by former fighter, Erin Toughill, is now the WBC international lightweight champion, as well as undefeated in her career. 

In a bout where both fighters came in below the super middleweight limit, making one think that Cem Kilic might be looking for a middleweight fight in the future, Cem Kilic got a unanimous decision win over Marco Delgado. The scores were wide, and the fight was close. The bad cards hurt the reachability of the fight as it does neither fighter justice. Delgado is a really tough club fighter, with several upset wins. 

Featherweight Omar Cande Trinidad got a weird stoppage over Javier Padilla, who trains with Max Garcia in Salinas, California. Trinidad cut Padilla in round three, only for the referee to stop the bout prematurely in the fourth round. A tough way to end this one, but Padilla had taken damage in this fight, and looking at social media no one objected to the stoppage after the fight. 

One of my favorite amateurs, the action-packed middleweight Jordan Panthan, who turned pro at super middleweight got a first-round stoppage defeating his opponent in a little over a minute. 

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The hype around Dalton Smith continues as he stopped Sam O’Maison in six rounds. Smith feels to be a guy that will be in the running for a belt at 140 lbs., as well as probably a future Conor Benn opponent, but his book is still unwritten at the world-level as of yet. 

Sandy Ryan avenged her lone career loss to Erica Farias, a big statement for her to lose, and then beat that same opponent. 

Hopey Price got a win, he seems good. Campbell Hatton got a six-round decision as well.

A 2-0 prospect Nico Leivars got a draw deep on the undercard…

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Steve Claggett stopped Tony Luis in Canada in the seventh round. 

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Sulem Urbina got a win the L.A. market, and Kenny Lopez Jr., of Ceres, Ca won on that same card.

MMA In 500 Words Or Less

The young continue to eat the old in the UFC as Jamahal Hill knocked out former title cotender Thiago Santos via a fourth-round stoppage. It wasn’t the greatest bout I had ever seen, but Hill continues to look like the future of the light heavyweight division. As the UFC get deluted with too many fight cards, Hill looks promising. 

Geoff Neal stopped Vicente Luque in the third round of their bout. This fight was similar to Gatti v. Ward in boxing, so if you like brutal fights, this might be one to watch. Neal is now someone I will be following. 

Two Ultimate Fighter Finale bouts occured as Mohammed Usman, the brother of champion Kamaru Usman stopped Zac Pauga, and Juliana Miller stopped Brogan Walker in the third round. Miller looks like someone who will emerge as a star in the organization. 

We started the card with “tap-gate”, as bantamweight Mayra Bueno Silva looked to tap Stephanie Egger, but we had confusion over it. You should read about or re-watch it if you didn’t see it. It was strange. 

PFL

In the year-end playoff format of PFL, Stevie Ray defeated former UFC champ Anthony Pettis continuing a trend in MMA of if I have heard of a fighter they typically lose.