Gary Russell Jr bounces back with shutout win on ShoBox

Gary Russell Jr came back from his first career defeat earlier this year against Vasyl Lomachenko to score a one-sided decision win over Christopher Martin tonight on ShoBox, winning handily on scores of 99-91, 100-90, and 100-90. BLH had it 100-90 for Russell.

Martin was unable to deal with the speed of Russell in the first four rounds, as Russell unloaded with combinations that caused Martin to turtle up. While once Martin was a very good boxer, he was looking a bit shot at age 28, having been through plenty of tough fights, many of them going 10 rounds over the years.

By the mid-way point of this fight, with Martin hopelessly behind on the scorecards, it seemed like a long time ago that Martin had upset Chris Avalos on ShoBox. Four years can be an eternity in the boxing game.

Martin did show some signs of life in the fourth round, landing 12 shots according to ShoStats, which was up from his totals of 1, 4, and 5 in the first three rounds. But Russell was still his superior, and in round six, he began to touch Martin (28-5-3, 9 KO) up with constant pitty-pat punches, like a cat batting at a ball of yarn. Martin did try to press offensively in the second half of that round, cornering Russell and targeting the body, but Russell (25-1, 14 KO) just kept flicking his hands out, landing pretty consistently, and negating what Martin was able to do well.

The second half of the fight went as the first did, with Russell peppering Martin continuously, and Martin unable to defend or counter effectively at all.

Russell stayed active in the fight, throwing 845 total punches, landing 293 for a 35% connect rate. He connected on 49% of his power shots (197/398), and 21% of his jabs (96/447). Martin landed a paltry 67 of 353 total punches (19%), 40 of which were power shots, and 27 jabs.