EBU light welterweight champion Sandor Martin (39-2, 13 KOs) marched into Fresno, California, and took the heavy favorite Mikey Garcia (40-2, 30 KOs) to school in winning a 10 round majority decision on Saturday night at the Chukchansi Park in front of 8,000+ shocked boxing fans.
Mikey, 33, looked old, soft around the middle and slow with his timing in getting beaten to the punch the entire fight by the younger, taller 28-year-old Spaniard Sandor.
VIDEO The judges scored the fight as follows: 95-95, 97-93, and 97-93. Boxing 247 scored it for Sandor 98-92. At best, Mikey deserved to win two rounds, the fifth and ninth.
Apart from that, he was dominated by the faster and surprisingly better-skilled little-known Sandor Martin.
After the fight, Mikey was in denial, saying he thought he had done enough to win the bout. He then added that he wants a rematch of 12 rounds instead of 10.
Results:
Unbeaten super featherweight prospect Marc Castro (4-0, 4 KOs) annihilated journeyman Angel Luna (14-8-1, 7 KOs) by a first round knockout in a scheduled six round fight.
Referee Jack Reiss waved the fight off due to Castro hitting Luna at will with shots and virtually nothing coming back.
The shorter, weaker, and slower Luna, 31, wasn’t fighting back and doing little on defense to block the incoming shots.
Huge underdog Jonathan “Bomba” Gonzalez (25-3-1, 14 KOs) outboxed WBO light flyweight champion Elwin Rodriguez (19-2, 13 KOs) in defeating him by a 12 round split decision in a cat & mouse affair. Gonzalez stayed on the move the entire fight, landing single left-hand pot shots to the head of the slower Soto.
The judges scored it as follows:
116-112 – Gonzalez
116-112 – Gonzalez
116-112 – Rodriguez
It’s hard to know what the judge was thinking that scored the fight 116-112 in favor of Rodriguez, as he was badly outboxed tonight. The fight wasn’t close.
Undefeated light flyweight contender Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez (14-0, 10 KOs) steamrolled over the hapless Alejandro Burgos (18-5-1, 15 KOs) by a fourth round knockout.
Rodriguez went after the weaker, slower Burgos in the fourth round, knocking him down twice to get the stoppage. The fight was halted at 1:23 of the fourth. The fight wasn’t competitive enough for it to be fun to watch.
Undefeated lightweight Brock Jarvis (20-0, 18 KOs) had a tougher than expected fight tonight in defeating Alejandro Frias (13-5-2, 6 KOs) by a fifth round knockout.
The referee appeared to step in early while Frias was fighting back on the ropes. The time of the stoppage was at 2:04 of the fifth. Jarvis was badly hurt in the second round when Frias unloaded a storm of power shots on him.
You got to give Brock credit for making it out of the second round without getting knocked out.
After the fight, the 23-year-old Jarvis was booed by the sparse crowd at the Chukchansi Park when the results were announced. Jarvis has an exciting Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini style of fighting which makes him fun to watch.
Super middleweight prospect Diego Pacheco (13-0, 10 KOs) defeated Lucas de Abreu (12-1, 11 KOs) by an 8th round stoppage.
The fight was halted at the 2:21 mark of the eighth round. The loss for the 28-year-old Brazilian Abreu was the first of his career.
Unbeaten middleweight prospect Nikita ‘White Chocolate’ Ababiy (11-0, 6 KOs) labored to an unimpressive eight round unanimous decision over Sanny Duversonne (11-5-2, 8 KOs).
It was a fun fight to watch Ababiy plodding forward and loading up on everything he threw in the fight, and not taking heed to get out of the way of Duversonne’s shots.
The judges were 80-72, 79-73, 77-75.
It’ll be interesting to see how long Matchroom will keep Ababiy part of their stable before they cut him adrift. He doesn’t look like he’s improving, and it’s doubtful that he’ll ever win a world title.
It’s unclear what the end game is for Matchroom in promoting Ababiy. Are they keeping him around because of his crude style of fighting or because of the way he looks?
The fight will be taking place at a 145-lb catchweight, which was done for Mikey’s benefit because he wanted the match to be held at 147. Interestingly, Sandor (38-2, 13 KOs) looked more natural at the weight on Friday than Mikey, who looks like a chunky super featherweight.
It’s a decent opponent for the former four-division world champion Mikey (40-1, 30 KOs) to shake off the cobwebs that have gathered from his nearly two years of inactivity since his last fight.
“The budget wasn’t there. I also wanted the Regis Prograis fight more than any other fight,” said Mikey Garcia to Secondsout. “Unfortunately, things in boxing happen. That’s why fights in boxing don’t get done.
“We have to get back in the ring, though. I’ve got to get back. Eddie mentioned a few names, and I gave the okay to all three names. He proposed Sandor Martin, and we said, ‘Sure, let’s do it. At least it gets me back in the ring.’
“I don’t think it’s just a ‘fight.’ It’s a good match-up, and it gets me back in against a good opponent that is hungry to get a win over me to launch his career even higher. Casual boxing fans don’t know much about him [Sandor] yet, but this is his opportunity. I can’t take him lightly.
Mikey Garcia is fighting tonight in a tune-up bout against Matchroom Boxing promoted Sandor Martin in a 10-round bout in the main event on DAZN from Fresno, California. Boxing 247 will be giving updates below of tonight’s action from the Chukchansi Park, in Fresno, California.
Mikey wanted to fight Regis Prograis but the funds weren’t there to make the fight happen.
I can’t image sitting next to that female judge. I get it, she’s trying to judge, but she acts as if she had ADHD and is all over the place every fight.