Dyah Davis ended a night of upsets on American TV, taking the undefeated record of super middleweight prospect Marcus "Too Much" Johnson, winning a 10-round unanimous decision. Scores were 98-91 (twice) and 96-93. Bad Left Hook scored it a closer 95-94 for Davis.
Johnson (20-1, 15 KO) took a knee on a well-placed body shot in the ninth round, which seemed to be the biggest difference of a pretty low-key fight by my count, but wound up not really mattering on the official cards. Davis (19-2-1, 9 KO) scored the biggest win of his career with this one, while Johnson suffers a setback that could be really troubling considering his general level of inactivity over the years. He was waiting too long to fight after wins, let alone losses. The question for a while bubbling about "Too Much" was whether or not he was really all that dedicated to his craft. Now we'll definitely find out, because the bubble is burst.
In the opening bout of the evening, another unbeaten fighter lost his "0", as Willie Nelson was knocked down three times en route to an eight-round majority decision loss to Vincent Arroyo. Nelson (16-1-1, 10 KO) talked a big game coming in, but the nearly 6'4" welterweight frankly looked nothing but tall in this fight -- well, tall and chinny. Arroyo (11-1, 7 KO) fought with a chip on his shoulder and though he was giving up a ton of height and reach, just looked like the better fighter by a good amount. Even Nelson's successes in the fight seemed to be mostly due to the fact that he's very tall, and while he is in fact very tall, it's hard to see him becoming a player without some serious improvements defensively, because that chin is not going to do him any favors.
The night's second bout saw another fighter lose his undefeated record, as Danny O'Connor (14-1, 3 KO) lost a wide decision to Gabriel "Tito" Bracero (15-0, 1 KO). With all due respect to both guys as professional fighters, there's really not much worse than watching two guys who can't punch fight one another. Bracero was clearly the better fighter, as O'Connor was just not on his level.
Solo Boxeo Tecate Results
- Jessie Vargas RTD-1 Vivian Harris: Someone at Golden Boy needs to develop a conscience and stop trotting not-so-vicious Vivian out there for these debacles. Continuing to put him in fights entirely so he'll be beaten up and you can try to milk whatever sad remains are left in his fighting soul is, I don't know, pathetic, or bad karma, or something. Whatever it is, it feels icky. Is that a nice enough way to put it?
- Eddie Gomez UD-6 Roberto Lopez: Gomez, 18, improves to 4-0 (3 KO).
- Bastie Samir D-6 Lester Gonzalez: The first flaw on the record of Samir (10-0-1, 10 KO) as the Ghanaian puncher draws Gonzalez (11-3-2, 6 KO). This wouldn't seem so bad until you notice that Gonzalez, a 2006 Cuban defector, is 33 years old and had lost three in a row since November.