Michael Wilson Jr. takes a look back at the weekends action.
1. The Mikey Garcia train keeps rolling – Former WBO Featherweight champion Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia, who lost the belt in this past June due to the fact that failed to make weight for a fight against Juan Manuel Lopez, moved up four pounds to challenge WBO Jr. Featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez this past Saturday in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Garcia at the American Bank Center. Garcia suffered a surprise flash knockdown in round two, but dusted himself off to dominate Martinez in route to an eighth round stoppage ending the bout with a wicked left hook to the body. Garcia is rounding out to be a terrific fighter who I believe may already be the best Jr. Lightweight in the world with. The only fighter at 130 that has a chance to beat him is WBA champ Takashi Uchiyama of Japan, but that bout is very likely to not happen (logistics, promoters, money, not many people know about Uchiyama). Yet in still the future is very bright for Garcia, as potential a bout with Yuriorkis Gamboa (interim titlist at 135) could very well happen at some point in 2014. Mikey Garcia is on the fast track to stardom.
2. Donaire struggles to beat Darchinyan in their rematch – To those who didn’t watch the rematch between Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan, you would see Donaire TKO9 and may think hey, Donaire had his way with Darchinyan. That was far from the case as Darchinyan fought inspired while Donaire for the most part struggled and looked lackluster.
This was a rematch of their 2007 bout when Donaire shocked Darchinyan to win the Flyweight belt by stunning fifth round KO in arguably the biggest upset of that year. In the rematch this past Saturday on the undercard of Rocky Martinez – Mikey Garcia in Corpus Christi, Texas Donaire struggled throughout. Donaire, making his return to the ring following his loss to Guillermo Rigondeaux this past April, seemed tentative and didn’t fight with any real sense of urgency while Darchinyan fought his best fight in recent memory.
After eight rounds, Donaire was down on all three scorecards. However, things turned for Donaire in the ninth when he struck with his vaunted left hook that put Darchinyan down. While Darchinyan got up, he never fully recovered and Donaire and Donaire ended matters with a follow-up assault.
The question now is, where does Donaire go from here and does this bout leave even more questions about him? Look for Donaire to get a title shot at some point during 2014 at Featherweight, I’m guessing against IBF champ Evgeny Gradovich. After his stoppage of Darchinyan, Donaire called out Rigondeaux and said he wanted a rematch. Given how he looked in his rematch with Darchinyan, he has a ways to go before beating the likes of Rigo.
3. Demetrius Andrade – Vanes Martirosan was actually somewhat entertaining – When discussing this bout, I had two points of contention. One, that Andrade really didn’t deserve a title shot because he’s fought no one of note and hasn’t been tested and secondly, his bout against Vanes Martirosan for the vacant WBO Jr. Middleweight title would be a real stinker. I have to say that I was wrong and the fight didn’t stink on ice. While Andrade was knocked down in round two by way of a left hook, he got up and used his jab, reach, and combination punching to pretty much control the bout.
Andrade is now a player in the Jr. Middleweight division.
4. If you haven’t seen Shinsuke Yamanaka fight, You need to – Yeah I know, Shinsuke Yamanaka is a name only known to us super hardcore boxing fans. Hell, I know folks who consider themselves serious boxing fans that don’t even know who Yamanaka is.
Well, for those unaware of who he is, Shinsuke Yamanaka is the WBC Bantamweight champion who recently scored a ninth round stoppage of Alberto Guevara on Nov. 10 and I’m hear to tell you, Yamanaka can really fight. After watching Yamanaka’s stoppage of Guevara, I believe that Yamanaka is the best Bantamweight in the world and one of the more complete boxers in the sport. Unfortunately for the undefeated Yamanaka, he has two drawbacks. One, he’s fighting in a division that most people don’t pay attention to and second, Yamanaka fights exclusively his home country of Japan. I would love to see Yamanaka fight either one of the Kameda brothers, or Anselmo Moreno, bouts that would be huge in Japan, at some point in 2014.
If you get the chance to watch Yamanaka fight, please do so because he’s indeed that damn good.
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Well with the past week of boxing over and done with, it’s on to the next and the highly anticipated return to the ring of Andre Ward who will be returning to the ring this weekend following a 14 month layoff to face Edwin Rodriguez. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any rust following such a long time away from the ring. Does Rodriguez have a chance, can he pull the upset? Or will Ward once again show his dominance? One thing’s for sure, I’ll be glued to the tube to see what goes down.
