In a more or less uneventful but overall worthwhile episode of Golden Boy Live! on FOX Sports 1, 45-year-old Antonio Tarver made his heavyweight debut (if you're listening to the commentators and ring announce, anyway) with a fourth round stoppage of West Virginia club fighter Mike Sheppard in the main event.
Tarver (30-6, 21 KO) weighed in at 221 pounds for the fight, the same as he was in 2010 when he fought and beat Nagy Aguilera in a more laborious 10 rounds. Aguilera, it should be noted, is better than Sheppard (21-16-1, 9 KO), a 38-year-old tough guy who's been stopped in one by Ruslan Chagaev and Vinny Maddalone, in two by Denis Boytsov, and in four by Brian Minto.
If I were guessing old man Tarver's heavyweight upside, I'd say Brian Minto sounds about right. He is literally no threat to the top ten of the division. The likes of Chris Arreola would surely demolish him in fairly short order. It's not that Tarver isn't still technically a better boxer than a lot of heavyweights, but he clearly does not have the frame for the division. He absolutely looks like an old, blown-up light heavyweight. It's just what he is, and it's just reality.
Super featherweight Randy Caballero improved to 20-0 (12 KO) with a seventh round stoppage of Jessy Cruz (10-6-1, 4 KO), a Miami native who in theory had the home field advantage, not that it mattered much. Cruz made what fight of it he could, but he was sorely outclassed.
Also on the FS1 telecast, junior middleweight Thomas Williams Jr stayed undefeated with a wide 10-round decision win over faded veteran Yusaf Mack. Williams (15-0, 10 KO) seemed to go for the finish in the second round, but may have blown his wad in doing so, as Mack (31-7-2, 17 KO) was able to survive the attack and carry on. From there, it became more sparring-like in nature. Mack, 33, has that thing where he clearly still knows how to box, but the signals aren't being received fast enough. His reflexes have gone from him and he's purely an also-ran fighter now, who will likely be used to check prospects for as long as he continues on. This was his third straight loss.
Off TV, two heavyweight hopefuls remained undefeated. Luis Ortiz (20-0 17 KO) knocked out Puerto Rico's Alex Gonzales (20-9, 10 KO) in two minutes, while Dominic Breazeale (8-0, 8 KO) stopped Keith Barr (11-5, 3 KO) in two rounds.