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140-pound prospect Mykquan Williams remained unbeaten with a win in tonight’s Broadway Boxing main event, picking up a decision victory over Rickey Edwards on scores of 96-94, 97-93, and 100-90.
If you’re an experienced boxing fan and didn’t see this fight, chances are you just looked at those scores and decided that some judge(s) got this one way wrong despite “the right guy winning.” And that is the case. The 96-94 and 97-93 cards are pretty tough to defend, particularly the 96-94 card which means that judge had it a round away from being a draw.
Bad Left Hook had it 99-91 and maybe gifted the final round to Edwards (12-3, 3 KO), which doesn’t much matter because our scores don’t potentially take money out of anyone’s pocket going forward. This was a shutout or one round at best to Edwards; finding three or four rounds for him would take some real work.
So if you’re a “the right guy won, at least!” kind of person, consider that the judge who gave Edwards 3-4 rounds he didn’t deserve will keep being a judge, and is going to get a fight wrong again, except next time it might not wind up with the “right guy” winning. A bad card is a bad card, and this was a bad card. The 97-93 card isn’t a lot better, either.
Anyway, Williams, 21, looked solid here. He landed a nice, clean right hand in the second round that rocked the 28-year-old Edwards, which was probably the real highlight of the performance. The next eight rounds were sort of lunchpail stuff from Williams, who didn’t get many clear openings from a tentative Edwards. But they were valuable rounds if nothing else, the first time that Williams (15-0, 7 KO) has gone 10 in his pro career.
Elijah Pierce TKO-3 Irvin Gonzalez
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Big upset here, as Pierce (9-1, 8 KO) was a +1000 underdog against the previously-unbeaten Gonzalez (12-1, 9 KO), a featherweight prospect who’s been on ShoBox in the past.
Pierce, a 22-year-old Oklahoma native, was coming in off of his first career loss to Giovanni Mioletti in Tacoma 11 months ago, so this is just enormous for him. He came out firing in this one, dropping the 23-year-old Gonzalez twice in the opening round, which Gonzalez really only survived because the bell sounded before action could resume after he got up from the second knockdown, with his legs looking all but gone.
Gonzalez settled in just a bit in the second and then for most of the third, then got cracked again, dropped again, and the referee jumped in to stop it. Gonzalez complained, and you’d expect that, but it wasn’t a bad stoppage. He wasn’t knocked flat out, but he was getting whacked around the ring and just having a terrible time.
So now Pierce is a kid to keep your eye on for sure, and I wouldn’t write off Gonzalez just yet, either. He didn’t look good here, but it happens. Let’s see if he can come back. Pierce did.
Toka Kahn Clary TKO-5 Carlos Reyes
Clary (26-2, 18 KO) was looking to bounce back from a loss to Kid Galahad last October in Boston, which was a title eliminator, and he did nicely here, dropping Reyes (33-6-1, 23 KO) in the third and fifth rounds, the latter a body shot that ended the fight, as Reyes was clearly finished.
Clary, 26, is still young enough to do something at 126 or 130, a solid, talented fighter who could work his way back to a title shot, or at least another eliminator. This was the type of win he needed. Reyes has a super empty record, mostly piling up wins in the Dominican Republic and getting beaten everywhere else, but he came forward, he came to fight, and Clary took him out.
George Arias UD-8 Keith Barr
Scores were 77-74, 78-73, and 78-73 for Arias, who was dropped in the second round but improves to 14-0 (7 KO). Arias is a 27-year-old Dominican heavyweight prospect from the Bronx who fights like he’s doing an Ali impression in a Tyson/Frazier sort of body. He’s very in love with his bouncing around style and was a New York local amateur standout, the type of dude who gets YouTube highlight video makers and forum posters very excited.
Bad Left Hook had it 77-74 for Arias, but a lot of that came on Barr (19-12-1, 8 KO) refusing to engage for long periods of time while Arias flicked his hands out and bounced around on his toes. Reviews for Arias’ last performance (a majority decision win in Ohio) weren’t sparkling, and if my review means anything to you, this one wasn’t great, either.
Marco Huck NC-1 Nick Guivas
Well, this was interesting. Former cruiserweight titleholder Huck got a gimme against Kansas club fighter Guivas, a 40-year-old guy who has traveled all around willing to take fights since late 2011, and instead of just a clean outclassing, we got “weird” instead. Huck (42-5-1, 28 KO) dropped Guivas (14-11-3, 9 KO) really quickly on a right hand, and the fight was basically over there, but Guivas got up and fought on.
Huck went at him again, the referee shouted to break from a distance as they got tied up a bit, and then Huck blasted Guivas with two more shots that put the Kansan down once more.
So you figure, hey, that’s technically a foul. Guivas couldn’t continue, he was staggering all over. So the result you expect is probably a no-contest, it’s not like they’re gonna DQ Huck there. But instead we got a TKO-1 ruling at 57 seconds in, with the ring announcer saying, “The doctor called for a stop to this contest for an accidental foul, therefore your winner by TKO,” which really doesn’t make a lot of sense.
THEN, later on, the commission changed it to the no-contest it should have been. Huck has his reputation as a bit of a dirty fighter (might be being kind), and it just is what it is at this point.
Anyway, Huck will go on. He’s 34 and small so not likely to be a real heavyweight contender, which could make him perfect for Tyson Fury in September. “I’m fighting the former cruiserweight champion of the world and I know he’s coming to knock me brain out of me skull,” etc.