Weekend’s Boxing Recap: Ohara Davies Stops Lewis Ritson, Brandon Figueroa Scores Wide Decision Win, And MORE
Boxing Recap And Results: Ohara Davies And Brandon Figueroa Score Big Wins As Hurd Loses Again
Yesterday saw two big shows in the UK and USA, with Lewis Ritson and Ohara Davies headlining in Newcastle, and Brandon Figueroa and Mark Magsayo topping the bill in California.
Starting in Newcastle, Davies put on a career-best performance against Ritson. Landing flush from the very first round Ritson simply couldn’t stand up to the powerful assault from “OD”. Davies found the sweet spot to Ritson’s body in the mid-rounds. He launched an assault of jabs, hooks and straights to this area, eventually putting Ritson down with a left hook in the 9th with Ritson unable to beat the count.
A career-best win for Davies has landed him a shot at WBA champion Alberto Puello. Puello first defends his title against Rolly Romero on May 13 in the US live on Showtime. The winner of that clash must face Ismael Barroso within 90 days and the winner of that will have to fight Davies 9 months after the conclusion of Puello/Romero vs Barroso meaning the Brit is unlikely to get a title shot for a year or even eighteen months.
In the chief support in Newcastle, Otabek Kholmatov did a demolition job on local favourite Thomas Patrick Ward, putting him down 3 times for a TKO-5 win. Snatching away Ward’s longest unbeaten record in Britain in a brutal fashion. Kholmatov is now the mandatory challenger for Mauricio Lara.
Moving onto the stateside action, America’s Figueroa beat Fillipino Magsayo with a unanimous decision to claim the WBC Interim Featherweight Championship. A great back-and-forth war between the two was somewhat ruined as a competitive spectacle by the referee taking two points from Magsayo due to holding, although many onlookers deemed both deductions as harsh. Magsayo started quickly, but eventually, Figueroa grinded him down, taking a clean sweep of the later rounds and hurting Magsayo a few times along the way.
On the undercard, Jarrett Hurd was outworked, outpunched and stopped by relative unknown challenger Jose Resendiz. The fight was competitive in the first 3 or 4 rounds, however, after this point, it turned into a one-sided beating with Resendiz landing at will on the tired Hurd.
The doctor deemed a nasty laceration to the inside of Hurds mouth, and lip to be enough to call the fight off before the start of the 10th and final round. The undercard also saw the emergence of a potential star, with Elijah Garcia stopping the unbeaten Amilcar Vidal in the 4th round. At only 19 years old the future looks bright for Garcia. Who moved to 14-0 with 12 stoppages.
Overall the night of boxing was extremely entertaining, with good matchmaking throughout. If you missed the action I would heavily recommend you look back on the fights, especially Figueroa vs Magsayo.