Despite the Taylor Swift banner hanging from the rafters and the golden Oscar De La Hoya statue outside, Staples Center will always be a basketball venue (sorry, LA Kings fans).
Tale of the Tape | Errol Spence Jr.
But, on Saturday night boxing took center stage at Los Angeles’ best sporting venue and shined. Errol Spence Jr. defeated “Showtime” Shawn Porter Jr. in a thrilling “fight of the year” contender that even had the “Magic” man behind the original “Showtime” giving it up for the two champions.
Although Spence was a resounding favorite coming off his dominating win against Mikey Garcia, fight insiders like Danny “Swift” Garcia (more on him later) who has taken an “L” from Porter, predicted that it was a “50/50” fight.
Indeed, the fight went down to the wire as Porter (30-3-1) gave the undefeated Spence (26-0) the biggest challenge in his ascending career. “The Truth” did exactly what he said he would do, mixing it up with Porter, a brawler whose awkward style forced the gifted Spence to stay on his toes. It was technique versus tenacity, which provided non-stop drama that had the crowd of 16,702 on their feet throughout the action-packed night.
Although the fight was close (Spence threw 745 punches to Porter’s 744, although Spence landed 221 of those punches — 49 more than Porter), Spence put a punctuation on the split-decision victory with an 11-round knockdown.
The spirited bout, which preceded some contentious pre-fight words, at times resembled a neighborhood brawl between two old friends who fell out. Fittingly, it ended like that as the two hugged it out after the bell rung.
What’s next for Spence? Although most fight fans want a showdown with Manny Pacquiao or a dream fight with Terence Crawford, the P4P candidate has already lined up an opponent — none other than the aforementioned Garcia, who just happened to be doing ringside commentary for the Fox pay-per-view event.
Benavidez is a problem
David Benavidez made history once again by becoming the youngest two-time super middleweight champ of all time. The Phoenix phenom looks like the same dynamic fighter who was destined for greatness before battling some personal demons. The 22-year-old punching machine battered Anthony Dirrell for nine rounds before taking the WBC 168-pound crown from him after the fight was stopped due to a horrific cut he had inflicted on the courageous former champ’s eye.
A stain on an otherwise perfect night
Because this is boxing, the night had to have some ring scoring controversy. San Antonio’s Mario Barrios pulled out a contentious victory over Batyr Akhmedov, claiming the WBA 140-pound belt. Barrios win was booed by the crowd because he had clearly lost most of the fight despite knocking down the Uzbek Olympian twice, the second with under a minute left in the final round.
Yo Adrian! Riverside Rocky did it
Josesito López aka “Riverside Rocky” always puts on a rough-and-tumble show. The 35-year-old welterweight (37-8, 20 KOs) showed that he still has “it,” bloodying and battering a 36-year-old vet John Molina Jr. before the fight was mercifully stopped in the eighth round.
