I know there's a few boxing fans on TexAgs, so I'll start a thread.

HUGE upset tonight. Andy Ruiz Jr. TKO'd Anthony Joshua in the 7th tonight. I watched Ruiz fight Alexander Dimitrenko in April and thought he'd be cannon fodder when he was named the replacement fighter for Joshua. Unbelievable, hopefully this fast tracks a Wilder/Fury/Joshua round of fights.

Boxing is in a sad place. Any number of former champs would have destroyed either of those guys tonight

I couldn't disagree more. Almost all of the weight classes have quality and exciting fighters, and some are ridiculously deep (welterweight especially). Getting them to fight each other is tougher now, with Top Rank (ESPN), PBC (Fox and Showtime), and DAZN's promoters not wanting to cross lines.

I also watched Ruiz's last fight against Dimitrenko (on the Danny Garcia card), and was impressed then with how he controlled the bigger fighter. I never expected he would do the same with Joshua though.

While the heavyweight division isn't my favorite, it's more than Joshua, Wilder, & Fury, and tonight proved that. Dillian Whyte, Povetkin and Adam Kownacki are enjoyable to watch too. Also, with Oleksander Usyk moving up from cruiser weight, you have a great fighter getting ready to test himself against big boys.

Also, the World Boxing Super Series has had a bunch of really good fights this installment.

BoomGoesThe said:

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I couldn't disagree more. Almost all of the weight classes have quality and exciting fighters, and some are ridiculously deep (welterweight especially). Getting them to fight each other is tougher now, with Top Rank (ESPN), PBC (Fox and Showtime), and DAZN's promoters not wanting to cross lines.

I also watched Ruiz's last fight against Dimitrenko (on the Danny Garcia card), and was impressed then with how he controlled the bigger fighter. I never expected he would do the same with Joshua though.

While the heavyweight division isn't my favorite, it's more than Joshua, Wilder, & Fury, and tonight proved that. Dillian Whyte, Povetkin and Adam Kownacki are enjoyable to watch too. Also, with Oleksander Usyk moving up from cruiser weight, you have a great fighter getting ready to test himself against big boys.

Also, the World Boxing Super Series has had a bunch of really good fights this installment.

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I agree with pretty much all of this. Middleweight division is a lot of fun right now as well.

The top heavyweights might not be all time greats, but it's as exciting as the division has been for a while imo. Joshua was supposed to be the next great thing; this massive, chiseled athlete that was unbeaten with some real knockout power and he just got exposed by a guy that looks he should be playing beer league softball. Fury is the best fighter with his enormous size, speed, and unorthodox movement combination. He's fun to watch and you never know what might come out of his mouth. Wilder is probably the most exciting to watch because someone is getting knocked to the floor in his fights. He's not a good boxer, but he might have one of the best right hands of all time. Incredible power. Ruiz's upset redeems Jospeh Parker and I think gets him back in peoples minds as a contender. Ortiz has another shot at Wilder coming up, and in their previous fight looked like he had him hurt in the middle rounds but couldn't finish it.

Nobody wants to see Ortiz/Wilder again

I agree, pretty much every weight class, featherweight through heavyweight has depth (admittedly I haven't seen a ton of cruiser weights lately, and very rarely watch anything below bantam weight).

I'm hoping that this serves as a wake up call to other potential big fights. Wilder/Joshua/Fury could have brought in a lot of money that they'll miss out on now because of AJ's loss. I'm looking at you, Errol Spence and Bud Crawford.

Great point. I can't see Crawford losing to anyone on the Top Rank side of the street, but Spence could get caught by Porter, Thurman and especially Danny Garcia. Garcia looked exceptional against Granados.

On a different note, have you ever seen Omar Figueroa JR fight? I've only seen him once, back in February against John Molina in what I think was a junior welterweight fight. Figueroa was the WBC lightweight champion a handful of years ago, and during the broadcast they said he was a construction science major at A&M before leaving to box full time.

He's undefeated, at 29-0-1, but it doesn't look like he fights very often.

Edit: I just remembered that his younger brother, Brandon, also fought on the Danny Garcia, Andy Ruiz card and won a super bantamweight title.

BoomGoesThe said:

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Great point. I can't see Crawford losing to anyone on the Top Rank side of the street, but Spence could get caught by Porter, Thurman and especially Danny Garcia. Garcia looked exceptional against Granados.

On a different note, have you ever seen Omar Figueroa JR fight? I've only seen him once, back in February against John Molina in what I think was a junior welterweight fight. Figueroa was the WBC lightweight champion a handful of years ago, and during the broadcast they said he was a construction science major at A&M before leaving to box full time.

He's undefeated, at 29-0-1, but it doesn't look like he fights very often.

Edit: I just remembered that his younger brother, Brandon, also fought on the Danny Garcia, Andy Ruiz card and won a super bantamweight title.

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Never heard of Figueroa but I'll have to look out for him.

I was watching Inside the PBC last night, and they said Omar would be fighting Yordenis Ugas (who lost to Porter in his last fight) on the Paq vs Keith Thurman card. I've only seen one Ugas fight, but he was a super boring counter puncher. Hopefully Omar's aggressive style will make it entertaining.

Link courtesy of BoxingAg from another thread, but here's how I watch fights without subscribing/purchasing a ton of channels and ppvs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BoxingStreams/

Tyson Fury took out Tom Schwarz in 2 rounds tonight.

This was a terrible fight. I was cringing throughout the telecast for how over the top ESPN was with the whole lineal thing. They pretty much acted as if Wilder and Andy Ruiz didn't even exist. They actually billed this as a lineal heavyweight title fight! Tom Schwarz was a warm body at best, but ESPN was acting as if Fury just stopped the best heavyweight available. Tessitore said it was a "boxing masterclass". I almost spit my water out. To make matters worse, Tim Bradley doubles down by calling Fury the Heayweight Terrence Crawford.

It's almost shameful the level of bias that ESPN has towards Top Rank fighters. Having said that, I do believe that Fury is the most talented heavy weight in the world. As long as he doesn't get caught by a right from Wilder, I think he wins the rematch.

The real head scratcher this weekend came from the horrendous job Robert Byrd did refereeing the second cruiser weight semi in the World Boxing Super Series between Mairis Briedas and Krzysztof Glowacki. Midway through the second round, Glowacki hit Briedas in the back of the head during a clinch, and Briedas responded with a devastating elbow to Glowacki's chin (Briedas had a point deducted).

The bell rings for the end of the second, and Byrd doesn't hear it. He lets the fight go on for a full 13 seconds after the bell, and Glowacki gets laid out after the bell. Insane.

I'm sure there's a video of it somewhere online.

Any of y'all catch Josh Warrington's title defense vs Kid Galahad? I just finished watching it. Pretty ugly, and based on this fight I couldn't see Warrington beating Santa Cruz, Valdez, or Gary Russell Jr.

BoomGoesThe said:

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Any of y'all catch Josh Warrington's title defense vs Kid Galahad? I just finished watching it. Pretty ugly, and based on this fight I couldn't see Warrington beating Santa Cruz, Valdez, or Gary Russell Jr.

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When are they going to clear up that mess in the featherweight division? That division is in complete shambles. They have about 6 different champions, and none of them are fighting each other.

Great question. There's really no excuse for them not meeting. Santa Cruz has been champ for 2 1/2 years and Valdez for almost 3. I think Arum has milked their titles long enough without a unification fight, especially with the talk of Valdez possibly moving up to 130 because of him having difficulty making weight.

Warrington has dispatched everyone that resides across the pond (Selby, Frampton, and Galahad) and said he wants to fight stateside next. Gary Russell Jr has fought and defended his title a ludicrous 4 times in 4 years, so who knows what he and Al Haymon are thinking (I'm surprised the WBC hasn't stripped him of the belt).

The politics of boxing is by far the most frustrating thing to me. I want to see the top fighters go at it. There's no joy in seeing a top fighter dispatch of some bum in 2 rounds, meanwhile the other top fighters are fighting the same kind of warm bodies.

Pretty slow weekend for fights, especially since Tony Harrison had to drop out of his 154 lbs title rematch with Jermell (or is it Jermall? I can never remember which is the super welterweight and which is the middle weight).

I think the only fight I'll be watching is Andrew Cancio vs Alberto Machado II. The first fight was really entertaining and Cancio's story so good you have to root for him. Cancio was on Teddy Atlas' podcast after he won the title a few months back, and talks about all he went through in boxing, and how he was working his day job on a road crew all through training up to the fight.

Here's a link to it if you're at all interested.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fight-with-teddy-atlas/id1450847408?i=1000432478281

Yikes!

BoxingAg84 said:

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Yikes!

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You mean the massive Tom Schwarz fan base didn't sell it out?!

West Texan said:

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BoxingAg84 said:

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Yikes!

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You mean the massive Tom Schwarz Tyson Fury fan base didn't sell it out?!

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FIFY

Did y'all just see the WBO light flyweight title fight? Wild fight. This is the first time I've watched this light of a weight class. They wailed on each other the entire time. Do they not throw jabs at this weight class?

Edit: the Cancio/Machado rematch title fight is about to start.

BoxingAg84 said:

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West Texan said:

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BoxingAg84 said:

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Yikes!

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You mean the massive Tom Schwarz Tyson Fury fan base didn't sell it out?!

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FIFY

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The cocaine/boxing fan is a pretty small sliver on the ole Venn diagram.

BoomGoesThe said:

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Did y'all just see the WBO light flyweight title fight? Wild fight. This is the first time I've watched this light of a weight class. They wailed on each other the entire time. Do they not throw jabs at this weight class?

Edit: the Cancio/Machado rematch title fight is about to start.

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I didn't watch the DAZN card. I was watching ShoBox.

Thanks for the reminder. I just watched the Fundora fight (I saw his fight earlier this year, on Fox I think). I can't get over seeing a 6'7" super welterweight. It will be interesting to see if he develops into a contender down the road.

BoomGoesThe said:

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Thanks for the reminder. I just watched the Fundora fight (I saw his fight earlier this year, on Fox I think). I can't get over seeing a 6'7" super welterweight. It will be interesting to see if he develops into a contender down the road.

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I saw Fundora fight on a PBC undercard last year. He's an interesting guy to watch. Those other welterweights have a hard time punching up at him. If I remember correctly, he doesn't have a very long reach considering how tall he is.

Paul Malignaggi lost his bare knuckle fight to an MMA fighter last night.

Wow! Paulie talked a ton of trash leading up to this fight. I'm surprised he got beat.

Joey Spencer is in the first fight on Fox tonight. I'm interested in seeing if he is really a good prospect (he looked pretty blah on the Truax-Quillin undercard) or if he's getting hype because he's a young, good looking, white boxer.

BoomGoesThe said:

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Wow! Paulie talked a ton of trash leading up to this fight. I'm surprised he got beat.

Joey Spencer is in the first fight on Fox tonight. I'm interested in seeing if he is really a good prospect (he looked pretty blah on the Truax-Quillin undercard) or if he's getting hype because he's a young, good looking, white boxer.

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I like Spencer. It's gonna be great watching him develop. He's gonna be a good one if he's brought along correctly. Great KO by Rigondeaux just now btw....

That was a heck of a left hook by Rigondeaux, but once Ceja got up, the round was over (he hit the canvas with 8 seconds left). I would have liked to have seen if he could have shaken the cobwebs loose between rounds.

I had Ceja up 5 rounds to 2 before the KO, and almost the only time Rigondeaux was landing hurtful punches was when Ceja was conceding outside foot position...which happened on the knockout punch.

Power went out at my place and cable had to restart. I missed rounds 2-4. Did Spencer fight with his hands down for those rounds too?

Anybody watching this Commey vs Beltran fight on espn? Pretty exciting first round

I watched it and was impressed with Beltran's spirit to fight back after the 1st round, but I think it's tome for him to retire. I think Commey loses his belt next fight. Loma will box circles around him. If his opponent is Teofimo Lopez, Commey better not let him land left hooks like Beltran did, or he'll be on his back.

There are some interesting fights on DAZN and Showtime tonight. Nothing super, but interested to see Jermall Charlo, Joseph Parker back in action, and Andrade.

Mike Evans talks some boxing...

It's been a slow couple of weeks for big fights, but things definitely pick up over the next two weeks.

The only bout I watched this weekend was the Rob Brant / Murata rematch, and was definitely surprised to see Brant lose in the 2nd. I hope he can bounce back; I like high volume punchers.