Jack Catterall, Vijender Singh, Muhammad Waseem among winners in Dubai

140-pound contender Jack Catterall stayed unbeaten today in Dubai, outpointing Timo Schwarzkopf over 10 rounds in the main event.

Catterall (25-0, 13 KO) was victorious on wide and deserved scores of 99-92, 99-91, and 100-91. Germany’s Schwarzkopf (20-4, 12 KO) gave a solid and sincere effort at the upset, but he was just outclassed a bit by the 26-year-old southpaw from England.

Catterall was sharp and focused in this one, taking the occasional shot from the 28-year-old underdog Schwarzkopf, but for the most part fighting smart and simple, effectively putting punches together and controlling the tempo of the fight.

With the win, Catterall maintains his standing as the WBO mandatory challenger, meaning he’s in line for one of the two belts held by Jose Ramirez, who will return in February in China against his WBC mandatory, Viktor Postol.

Vijender Singh UD-8 Charles Adamu

This fight was advertised and listed for 10 rounds and was shown as being a 10-round fight on the TV graphics for five rounds:

Then in the sixth, suddenly, it became an eight-round fight:

Now listen, it could all be as simple as some miscommunication — we’ve had that happen before on TV fights, where suddenly something was 10 instead of 12 or whatever, because that’s what the commission actually had on the books — but they didn’t even mention it on this broadcast, at least not that I noticed. So of course boxing being a carny sport that caters to its A-sides, my mind darts to a tired Singh asking the fight to be shortened by two rounds. And I don’t care, because this fight wasn’t any good. Two less rounds of it is fine by me.

Singh (12-0, 8 KO) won on scores of 80-68 across the board, as the 42-year-old Adamu (33-15, 26 KO) was down twice, ruled down a third time when he wasn’t, and also docked a point for using his head.

Singh is a former Olympian from India and not unskilled or anything, but at 34 he’s not a prospect, and he’s certainly not got the résumé of a contender since turning pro over four years ago. He’s shown no real ambition as a pro, just a guy existing who will probably look to cash out on a money fight at some point. He probably could have finished this early if he did anything but hunt for a big right hand to the head, but that was seemingly his main and really only focus, despite hurting the old Adamu to the body when he did go down there early in the fight.

Muhammad Waseem UD-8 Ganigan Lopez

Waseem (10-1, 7 KO) gave Moruti Mthanale a good fight in a flyweight title bout last year, and is 2-0 since then, dabbling at super flyweight for the moment. The 38-year-old Lopez (36-11, 19 KO) was still really game here, but Waseem just the fresher and somewhat better fighter at this point.

The scores were 77-75, 77-75, and 80-73, so it was certainly competitive, but Waseem did deserve the W. We’ll see if the 32-year-old Pakistani looks to get back into a world title fight in 2020; he’s fairly fun to watch and he’s got some skills.

Thomas Patrick Ward UD-8 Martin Casillas

You might remember the 25-year-old Ward from a really impressive ShoBox win earlier this year. He’s scaled back the competition since going with MTK, this his third fight since then. But this was a solid win for Ward (29-0, 4 KO), as Casillas (20-12-1, 10 KO) was determined and never went away. Ward shut him out over eight, but Casillas had an argument in the fifth before Ward adapted again and took over down the stretch.

It’s hard to tell what we’ve got with Ward, and even what weight class he’ll really settle in at. He fights between 122 and 130 at this point, and he doesn’t have much power. But he’s a good boxer with a calm attitude. Casillas put pressure on all night but didn’t have a whole lot of real success, as Ward just picked him apart for the most part. He’s someone to remember at the very least.

Rohan Date UD-6 Justice Addy

If you recognize Addy’s name, it’s probably because he was the guy who fought crazy Joe Laws in October. This wasn’t quite as wild, but Addy (16-7-1, 14 KO) danced in, danced out, and in between gave Date (11-0-1, 8 KO) six rounds of work, losing on scores of 59-54, 60-53, and 60-53. Addy was down in the third round, but it was late and he survived until the bell, then went the distance. Date is a 26-year-old Irishman from Manchester now living in Dubai who was a solid amateur and is starting to get his pro career moving.

Fahad Al-Bloushi TKO-1 Sandro Tughushi

Al-Bloushi is a 23-year-old lightweight local in Dubai who made his pro debut here. Tughushi (1-7, 1 KO) is a 29-year-old Georgian who did what he was signed up to do, he sat down three times and lost in two minutes. The first knockdown came on a body shot and Tughushi tried to claim it was low, but the referee wasn’t buying it so Tughushi had to go on and eat a couple more shots. Impossible to tell anything about Al-Bloushi’s upside from this fight.