FanPost

Under the Radar Fight Results (Week Ending 10/29/17)

Welcome BLH people. As always read here or on S8C. Recs keep it visible.

I would like to address a couple points raised in the comments last time too. First and foremost, thank you guys for the engagement with my writing. I am so pleased that people enjoyed this. While it is a labor of love in many ways, it also is just plain a serious amount of labor. Watching about 80% of these fights and a blurb about them takes hours and hours of my time. I have full time job and a family, so this can be difficult to sneak in. Getting your comments helps to keep me driven. Thank you again.

As for asking for recs, it needs to be done in order for this to continue here. When I started standingeightcount.com, I of course had no readers. I posted random things around the internet in the hopes that people would see them. They have and thankfully I do have a small but growing reader base. it is a great feeling to see the early signs of success. BLH has never really made sense as a posting platform in that regard because it creates so little interaction compared to other platforms like major social media outlets. I do still take the time to redo the formatting each week to satisfy the few here that do enjoy it though. Plus, I do admit that I like seeing the comments.

To keep it worth the effort the post needs to be visible. I do not care about recs at all, only comments, but unfortunately this site's algorithm does. If a fanpost doesn't receive recs here, it vanishes fast. I keep the reminder to keep complacency at bay and remind people to click them. Without those few clicks, there is no point in cross posting this.

There were also a few great ideas in terms of making the article even better like naming "of the week" awards. Unfortunately, I am so stripped for time right now that expanding the scope of this any further is a non-starter. They were great ideas though that I may implement in the future. I will not be linking to videos, however, due to copyright concerns.

One thing you guys might enjoy is the fact that I keep a Top 25 for every division on S8C. Every Wednesday, the day after UTR, I post an article going over in detail how the week's results have impacted the rankings. You might find that to be good supplemental reading to go with UTR. I don't post it here because it doesn't feel appropriate to cross post and link to more than one article. I don't think many of you have seen that as, again, I don't get much of my traffic from BLH so feel free to check it out.

Thanks again for reading and enjoy.

-- Jordan


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Welcome back to Under the Radar Fight Results, the weekly column in which we go over all the even remotely prominent fights that I did not otherwise cover. This edition features a former UFC heavyweight title challenger in his pro debut, a 45 year old going strong, several major prospects, former world titleholders, and much more.

On the Radar Results

Juergen Braehmer dominates Rob Brant, time be damned

Anthony Joshua dispatches Carlos Takam in ten

Lolenga Mock

Under the Radar Fight Results

Saturday, October 28th

Lolenga Mock (41-14-1, 13 KOs) UD10 Roman Shkarupa (27-7-2, 11 KOs), super middleweights – Denmark

45 year old Lolenga Mock just keeps rolling now an astonishing twenty six years into his career. After starting 17-0 in Africa from 1991 to 1997, Mock went 5-9-1 from 1998 to 2004 fighting in more established places like South Africa and Europe. You might remember him during that stretch as the dramatically undersized "cruiserweight" with no power on his record who almost knocked out David Haye back in 2003. Since 2005, however, Mock is 19-4 and now has won ten straight, mostly fighting out of his adopted home of Denmark against pretty good European level opposition. Here Mock beat a man probably a bit below the level of the Luke Blackledges and Derek Edwards he had been fighting, but he also already has a contest set for less than a month from now too. It will be interesting to see where the high volume puncher can still go in his career from here at 45 years old.

Moises Fuentes (25-4-1, 14 KOs) KO1 Ulises Lara (18-16-2, 10 KOs), flyweights – Mexico

On paper this looks like a fight that went like it was supposed to, but it was actually a rematch of an upset that took place back in July. Lara is one of those fighters with a deceiving record thanks to starting his career poorly, but he still wasn’t supposed to beat former titleholder Moises Fuentes. That upset was cleanly avenged here by a first round demolition at the hands of a vengeful Fuentes. The former minimumweight titlist dropped Lara right out of the gate with a nice upstairs to downstairs combination, but Lara rose and they warred for another two minutes before a big right hand set Lara to his knees after a second or so delayed reaction. This ended the fight. This definitely was a fun two minutes and forty seconds.

Emanuel Navarrete (22-1, 19 KOs) TKO2 Danny Flores (15-11-1, 8 KOs), featherweights – Mexico

Mexican featherweight prospect Emanuel Navarrete is undefeated since he was 17 and more or less just rolling right through the Mexican domestic scene. It is definitely difficult to get a good read on these Mexican prospects sometimes, but Navarrete’s dominance over the midlevel of the scene south of the border cannot be ignored. The 22 year old already is set for his sixth fight of the year barely a week after this one too.

Frank Buglioni (21-2-1, 15 KOs) UD12 Craig Richards (10-1, 4 KOs), light heavyweights – Wales

British light heavyweight titleholder Frank Buglioni successfully defended his belt against late replacement Craig Richards. He isn’t really a relevant fighter internationally and is unlikely to ever be one, but he does have an interesting matchup with big time Frank Warren prospect Anthony Yarde looming. For that he would be a good test, though I suspect Yarde would pass it violently and quite early. Buglioni mostly controlled this, but Richards did bother him a bit in the third.

British prospect Joe Cordina

Joshua Buatsi (3-0, 2 KOs) PTS6 Saidou Sall (10-7-2, 4 KOs), light heavyweights & Lawrence Okolie (6-0, 5 KOs) TKO3 Adam Williams (1-2), cruiserweights & Joe Cordina (5-0, 4 KOs) PTS4 Lesther Cantillano (3-9, 2 KOs), lightweights – Wales

As is basically the case every week, a trio of Eddie Hearn prospects were on display. In my view, Buatsi and Cordina are pretty excellent ones too. Okolie also has tons of potential, but he reminds me a ton of early stage Deontay Wilder. He will need a lot of patience and development should he rise to championship level. All three are very early stage and still getting walkovers at this point. Given Team Great Britain’s success internationally in the amateurs and Hearn’s ongoing ability to monopolize them as professionals, Matchroom’s prospect depth is pretty nuts right now. Only Richard Schaefer’s upstart Ringstar Promotions can really even approach it in terms of quantity of strong early stage prospects.

Matt Remillard (26-1, 15 KOs) TKO4 Yardley Armenta Cruz (22-9, 12 KOs), junior lightweights – Connecticut

In 2011, Matt Remillard was a decent prospect and blossoming regional draw in Connecticut when he met Mikey Garcia on HBO in a matchup of unbeaten prospects. Though the fight was competitive early, Mikey Garcia took over late and began to really beat Remillard up. After ten rounds and three knockdowns, Remillard retired on his stool. Later in 2011, he was convicted of assault by beating a man over the head with a baseball bat in a girl dispute. The victim needed reconstructive surgery with plates and screws to fix the skull. Remillard, now 31, was lucky to get only five years in his plea deal. The Connecticut fighter is now three fights into his comeback and back down to junior lightweight, but it is really hard to root for him to succeed at this point.

Steve Rolls (17-0, 10 KOs) TKO3 Andrik Saralegui (8-5, 6 KOs), super middleweights – Connecticut

Multiple time ShoBox alum Steve Rolls is a decent looking prospect until you realize he is 33 years old. Last time out the Toronto based fighter scored a win on that program over talented but enigmatic power puncher Demond Nicholson. This fight was a step back down. Rolls seems to be acknowledging that time is short by moving his career stateside, but he really does need to find that bigger opportunity sooner rather than later. He is already near the end of his physical prime.

Gabriel Gonzaga (1-0) MD4 Alejandro Esquilin Santiago (0-1), heavyweights – Massachusetts

Former UFC heavyweight title challenger Gabriel Gonzaga lost fought an MMA fight in early 2016. He lost four of his last five, three by knockout. He is 38 and showed up to this fight at 280 lbs. Here Gonzaga managed a majority decision over a 40 year old also making his pro debut. This boxing career is going to go great.

Friday, October 27th

Steve Claggett (26-4-1, 17 KOs) SD10 Yves Ulysse Jr (14-1, 9 KOs), junior welterweights – Quebec

This was a real good fight with a slightly unsatisfying decision. In a domestic Canadian dust up, Claggett came out charging hard against the hot Montreal based prospect. He did some real good work at times, but I largely preferred Ulysse’s sharper and more accurate work off the back foot. He was definitely landing the flashier shots and closing the rounds better after hard early Claggett charges. I won’t call this a robbery as I only had it six rounds to four, but I really have a hard time coming up with enough rounds for the Alberta native to give him more than a draw. He did fight well though, much better than expected. Ulysse’s shine as a prospect is dulled a bit here even though he probably should have won.

Simon Kean looking the part

Simon Kean (11-0, 10 KOs) KO2 Randy Johnson (13-3, 11 KOs), heavyweights – Montreal

28 year old Simon Kean fought in the 2012 Olympics for Canada. There he edged out eventual 2016 Gold medalist Tony Yoka before losing to recent professionally turned Ivan Dychko. It was a pretty good showing in a super talented field. Kean turned pro at the very end of 2015 and has been rapidly building his record against the usual trial horses ever since. The Canadian heavyweight prospect is big at 6’5″, seems to be a puncher, and is staying active. He is a bit too lumbering to me even for a heavyweight to consider a special prospect, but they are building him to get his shot eventually regardless of what I think. No video of this yet, but I am reading Kean did suffer a flash knockdown of his own before he got the finish.

Vincent Feigenbutz (27-2, 24 KOs) KO11 Gaston Alejandro Vega (27-12-2, 11 KOs), super middleweights – Germany

When Vincent Feigenbutz won a secondary WBA super middleweight title in 2015, he was 19 years old. Imaginary world title or not, that is an accomplishment. He lost it a year later in a one to one, two fight series with Giovanni de Carolis. Since dropping the belt, he has gone 6-0 and Feigenbutz still only recently turned 22. His other defeat was a KO loss when he was 16. He isn’t beating world level opponents, but he is beating full grown men with good professional boxing records. Feigenbutz is absolutely a prospect to keep an eye on. As weird as it is to think of a fighter who approached world level and is 27-2 in that manner, he is very much still in his prospect stage of development. This win was consistently in keeping with his current level of competition.

Filip Hrgovic (2-0, 2 KOs) KO1 Pavel Sour (6-1, 5 KOs), heavyweights – Germany

25 year old Croation 2016 Olympic super heavyweight bronze medalist Filip Hrgovic took his second pro fight of October this weekend. While he generally fell short against the Joe Joyce’s and Tony Yoka’s of the amateur world, Hrgovic was very much a world class operator as an amateur. The 6’6″, full sized heavyweight now enters the paid ranks as a major prospect and he projects to be a significant power puncher too. In his first fight, Hrgovic stopped a known journeyman quicker than other top heavyweights had and here he quickly put away a previously unbeaten opponent. This isn’t bad competition for two pro fights in.

Fanlong Meng (12-0, 7 KOs) UD10 Emmanuel Danso (28-2, 23 KOs), light heavyweights – China

29 year old Chinese light heavyweight prospect Fanglong Meng (or Meng Fanlong depending how you like to arrange your Chinese names in our culture) won his first round bout in London before bowing out against eventual medalist and current Golden Boy prospect Yamaguchi Falcão. He isn’t a major prospect, but I do like to note all former Olympians until they at least lose a fight. Of course, if Meng could be developed, there would be a tremendous market for him as demonstrated by Shiming Zou. This was his first fight in Macao and fourth in Chinese lands overall. The rest have come stateside on various small promoter’s cards.

South African former titleholder Moruti Mthalane

Moruti Mthalane (35-2, 24 KOs) KO2 Ardin Diale (33-12-4, 16 KOs), flyweights – South Africa

From 2010 to 2012, Mthalane was the IBF flyweight titleholder and just simply an outstanding fighter. In that stretch, following a loss to the Nonito Donaire of old that no one could touch, the South African stopped the likes of Zolani Tete, John Riel Casimero, and Ricardo Nuñez. Then, after refusing to fight Amntan Ruengroeng in Thailand for what he described as "peanuts", Mthalane was stripped. He didn’t fight at all in 2013, took three fights combined in 2014 and 2015, and then again took 2016 off entirely. He is 3-0 in 2017 now and back on track for a IBF title fight after winning a minor belt of theirs here, but he is also currently 35 years old. It is a real shame how he wasted the end of his prime, but the South African is still good enough to give Donnie Nietes real trouble should he get his shot.

Tuesday, October 24th

Erkan Teper (18-2, 11 KOs) PTS10 Evgenios Lazaridis (11-1, 7 KOs), heavyweights – Germany

I mentioned in last week’s edition of UTR Teper and Lazaridis were supposed to fight but got shut down last minute due to their ring being too small. This week they found an actual boxing ring, apparently, and Teper won a close decision. Pretty hilariously they got their fight done in an actual gym with standing room only. As for the fight, Teper started well and controlled its first half. He began to tire a bit and was cut a little after the midpoint. From there Lazaridis came on. In the final round, the Greek heavyweight caught Teper with a real nice uppercut and he collapsed to the canvas. It was correctly ruled a knockdown, but, unfortunately for Lazaridis, he still lost the points decision by one single point. The decision could have gone either way.

Luis Concepcion (37-6, 26 KOs) KO2 Luis Carrillo (17-10-1, 15 KOs), super flyweights – Panama

Former recent super flyweight titleholder and multiple time challenger and secondary title holder Luis Concepcion picked up an easy win Tuesday night at home in Panama. After losing to Carlos Cuadras, Concepcion had a solid 2015 with good wins against David Carmona and Hernan Marquez before winning his belt in an upset on the road against Kohei Kono in 2016. He lost it on the scales before losing in a listless effort against Khalid Yafai later last year. The 32 year old is 2-1 now since that loss. Last time out Concepcion lost in an upset to little heralded Iran Diaz. I read a few accounts that result was a robbery, but I didn’t have video at the time to assess. It exists now in shaky cam footage if anyone wants to report back on that.

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