Friday Global Boxing Results: Senchenko Retains Belt in Ukraine

Pretty quiet Friday overall in the boxing world, but here's a look at what did happen across the globe.

Donetsk, Ukraine

Results: Vyacheslav Senchenko TKO-6 Marco Antonio Avendano ... Karoly Balzsay UD-12 Stas Kashtanov ... Ignacio Mendoza KO-1 Vladimir Kravets.

Analysis: Senchenko (32-0, 21 KO) retains his WBA welterweight belt with the win. He's up there for top paper titlists in boxing today. It's not that he can't fight, but his title reign has been sort of like Felix Sturm to the max, as he sits at home in Ukraine and takes easy defenses against back-end top 15 guys in the WBA's rankings like Avendano (30-8-1, 22 KO), Charlie Navarro, and Motoki Sasaki. This is why I show such love for a guy like Jan Zaveck, who clearly started he didn't want to hang out in Slovenia and Germany and make easy title defenses for the rest of his career, and backs that up by going to Biloxi, Miss., to fight Andre Berto on September 3. Good for him. As for Senchenko going forward, the October 8 fight between Kell Brook and Rafal Jackiewicz is a WBA eliminator, and the winner could be his next opponent.

Balzsay (24-2, 17 KO) hands Kashtanov (28-1, 15 KO) his first pro loss on scores of 116-111, 115-113, and 115-114. A couple of years ago, the Hungarian-born Balzsay, now 32, was a rising contender at 168 pounds, but then he lost two straight to Robert Stieglitz and Eduard Gutknecht, and he's been rebuilding since then with three straight wins. ... It was also the first career loss for Kravets (24-1, 15 KO), and given his past competition and the way that 27-year-old Mendoza (31-6-2, 20 KO) of Colombia has looked in past steps up, it's not good news for Kravets.

After the Jump: More Gomez vs Granados discussion (and YouTube links for the fight), and results from Telemundo in Kissimmee, Fla.

Chicago, Illinois (Full Recap)

Results: Frankie Gomez MD-8 Adrian Granados ... Omar Figueroa KO-2 Marcos Herrera.

Analysis: A nice edition of Golden Boy and Telefutura's Solo Boxeo Tecate, as highly-regarded lightweight prospect Gomez (11-0, 8 KO) got a very stern test from local boy Granados (8-2-1, 5 KO) in a terrific main event scrap. For those who missed it, the fight is already on YouTube: Round 1, Rounds 2/3, Rounds 4/5/6, Rounds 7/8. Bad Left Hook scored it 76-75 for Gomez, and it would have been a draw on my card if not for a second-round knockdown, and I could have easily seen it going the other way for Granados. Scores were 76-76, 77-74, and 78-73, the latter of which is hard to really take seriously. ... Figueroa (13-0-1, 10 KO) totally overwhelmed Herrera (6-7-1, 2 KO). I wonder if it's that Figueroa was just that ballsy and offensive-minded, or if Herrera is now breaking down in his role as "Golden Boy Opponent for the Prospects." This was his fourth straight fight playing that part.

Kissimmee, Florida

Results: Jose Nieves MD-12 Cuauhtemoc Vargas.

Analysis: Scores were 117-111, 115-113, and 114-114 for Nieves, but the Telemundo broadcast had it 116-112 for Vargas, making this the second straight debated fight between the two. Nieves (19-2-3, 8 KO) won a split decision on April 29 in the same building, with the same referee (Max Parker Jr), and one of the same judges (Alex Levin, who scored this one 115-113 for Nieves, and the first one 115-113 for Vargas).