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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4685950, member: 289"] Taking in some of the 'manly art' with a lull in the playoffs and a lull in the Mets playing like a major league team. The first bout was a couple of flies on DAZN 'Sunny' Edwards, a Willie Pep wannabe, (IBF champ, #2 Boxrec, 19-0 with 4KOs), took on Andres Campos (#53, 15-0 with 4KOs). Edwards was good at avoiding punishment in the open ring and landed some good counter-shots, none of which seemed to bother Campos, who advanced forward the whole fight. Edwards seemed desirous of proving he was a tough guy and took to hanging on the ropes and exchanging with Campos. He got the better of this early on but Campos was clearly the stronger man and the harder puncher. He found he could land some upper-cuts and Edwards went back to floating like a butterfly and stinging like one. But it piled up the points and he was safely ahead going into the 12th round, so he went back to fighting along the rope and thereby surrendered the final round to Campos. I had it 8 rounds for Edwards, 4 for Campos, (116-112). All three judges had it 9-3, (117-111). Later, on the undercard of the Munguia-Dereuyanchenko an up and coming fly, Ricardo Sandoval, (#14, 21-2 with 16KO, apparently no relation to Richard Sandoval from the early 80's), took on a tough but unknown Mexican named Rocco Santomauro (#43, 22-1, 6-1, against a bunch of other unknowns). The two guys went at each other for three minutes a round but Sandoval was a bit quicker and more active. It looked like he hurt Rocco with a body shot in the third but he focused on Rocco's head after that and was his least vulnerable spot. Rocco got in some good counter-punches but never got Ricardo in any trouble. In a 10 round bout, I gave Sandoval 7 rounds with two even, (99-94). The judges had it 98-92 and 96-94, (x 2). Shane Mosley Jr, (#21 super middle, 19-4, 10KO) got in a slugfest with D'Mitrius Ballard, (unranked due to inactivity middle 21-1-1, 13-1). Neither man was much on defense and they took turned belaboring each other, Mosley mostly to the head, Ballard mostly to the body. A shot to Ballard's temple in the 6th greatly reduced his enthusiasm and Mosley was all over him until the ref stopped it in the 7th. ESPN put on a fight between Xander Zayas, a talented young super welter, (#50 15-0, 10KO), who almost took out Ronald Cruz, ($200 18-2-1, 12KO) with his first punch. The rest of the fight was boring as Zayas was much the better fighter but couldn't put his man away. He has a nice jab and can throw combinations to the head and the body but he seemed to lack the instinct to finish his man off. The fight of the night - and the year - featured Jaime Munguia, he of the 41-0 record with 33 knockouts, (ranked #5 among the super-middles) and Serge Derevyanchenko, (let's call him 'Serge'), whose pro record of 14-4 with 10 knockouts is deceiving, as his #8 ranking shows. He's fought a lot of top guys and has been on the short end of some questionable scoring. Serge came out like a pit bull and was throwing haymakers at Jaime from the opening bell. To Jaime's credit, he never went down but he certainly received more punishment than Serge did, especially in the 5th round where it looked like Serge might be on the verge of knocking Jaime out. But Jaime survived and got his combinations going. It was a classic example of the most difficult fight to score: one man was landing more punches, the other the harder punches. Then Jaime scored a knockdown in the 12th round. He was unable to close it out so it went to the judges who gave it to Jaime 115-112 and 114-113 and 114-113. Ironically, Jaime's camp had asked for this to be changed to a 10 round fight but Serge refused. If he'd agreed, he would have won. Josh Taylor was taller and had a reach advantage over Teofimo Lopez but Lopez had the other advantages. He had faster hands, hit harder featured much more movement. After solving the reach problems he won round after round before taking the last round off. I had it 117-111, as did Max Kellerman and one judge. Two judges called it closer, 115-113. How you could give Taylor 5 rounds, I don't know. A lot of former lightweights will be congregating in the Junior Welter division in the near future. [/QUOTE]

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