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Some results from around the boxing world on Friday night.
Widnes, England (Sky Sports)
- John Murray TKO-11 Gary Buckland. Murray (29-0, 17 KO) mostly battered the brave Buckland (18-2, 6 KO) until the fight was stopped in the 11th round, retaining his British lightweight title and picking up the vacant European belt at 135 pounds. Murray, at 25, will probably stay at that level for a while longer, before maybe going world class. He is a good, aggressive fighter, and the fight had plenty of action. I don't know how much upside Murray has, but he's one to keep an eye on. He's starched domestic competition, stopping Buckland, Jon Thaxton, Scott Lawton, Lee McAllister and Lee Meager.
- Prince Arron PTS-8 Max Maxwell. Arron was the surprise winner of Prizefighter in February at 154 pounds, but I think this fight showed he still isn't really much of a fighter. He took the fight 78-74 on referee Howard John Foster's card against Maxwell (11-9-2, 2 KO). Arron (18-3-1, 1 KO) still has no power, and though he's young, he just doesn't really have the pedigree. He fought wonderfully within the Prizefighter format, but out in the real world, his success is going to be extremely limited.
Albuquerque, New Mexico (ESPN2)
- Yordanis Despaigne UD-10 Richard Hall. This was the headliner of a very weak Friday Night Fights, which happened because Antonio Escalante had to cancel a fight scheduled in Texas. Despaigne, 30, improved to 6-0 (4 KO) by shutting out veteran Hall (29-8, 27 KO), winning 100-90 on every card. Despaigne isn't a blue chipper like Yuriorkis Gamboa is/was, or like Erislandy Lara or Guillermo Rigondeaux. He's just not at that same level. And the win over Hall looks better on paper than in reality, too. Hall was in his second fight this year, but his February knockout of Jaffa Ballogou was his first fight since 2007. If Despaigne is going to make a legitimate pro career, he needs to go ahead and get a move on.
- Seth Mitchell TKO-2 Johnnie White. Mitchell improves to 17-0-1 (11 KO), while White falls to 22-2 (18 KO). Cliff Rold has a detailed write-up of the card at BoxingScene.com.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Telefutura)
- Danny Garcia TKO-7 Christopher Fernandez. Fernandez is a decent knockaround guy. He was Paulie Malignaggi's tune-up opponent when Malignaggi was between the Hatton loss and his comeback in the Diaz fights. He's now lost three in a row to fall to 18-10-1 (11 KO). Golden Boy's Garcia improves to 17-0 (11 KO). From accounts, it was a better performance than Garcia's rocky fight with Ashley Theophane in February.
Morgantown, West Virginia
- Billy Lyell UD-8 Martinus Clay. Coming off of a bad TKO loss to Sebastian Sylvester in a surprise middleweight trinket shot in January, Lyell (22-8, 4 KO) gets back on track -- well, as much as he's ever really 'on track' -- with a win over Clay, who serves as a pro opponent with great frequency. Clay can now add Lyell as his 25th loss, joining a list that includes Tim Coleman, Kassim Ouma, Harry Joe Yorgey, Andre Berto, Lanardo Tyner and James Kirkland.