ShoBox results: Vladimir Shishkin, Shohjahon Ergashev, Ja’Rico O’Quinn win in Iowa

The 250th edition of ShoBox: The New Generation is in the books, with some mixed reviews for the featured prospects, though they all did win.

Here’s a rundown of what we saw.

Vladimir Shishkin UD-10 Ulises Sierra

Sort of a workmanlike performance here from the 28-year-old Russian super middleweight Shishkin (10-0, 6 KO), but a good win where he took scores of 99-91, 99-91, and 100-90, all fair. BLH had it 99-91 for Shishkin.

Sierra (15-1-2, 9 KO) looked to land a big right hand early on, but as the fight went on he was just clearly a bit outclassed. Shishkin didn’t fully dominate this in emphatic fashion or anything, and truthfully it wasn’t the most inspired performance, but we also had to wonder all fight long if he had either suffered a left hand or arm injury early on in the bout, or even came in with something, and trainer Sugarhill Steward confirmed after the bout that Shishkin did come in with a left biceps injury.

Shishkin remains an interesting guy at 168, which is not the strongest division at the moment and is ripe for some new blood. Not his absolute best showing, but a clear victory all the same.

Shohjahon Ergashev KO-1 Adrian Estrella

Dave Mandel/SHOWTIME

Short work for Ergashev (18-0, 16 KO), who blasted Estrella (29-5, 24 KO) with a body shot and ended the fight in 92 seconds. This is an early clubhouse leader for Knockout of the Year. Probably won’t stand for 11 months, but it was a hell of a left hand to the body. Estrella went down in awful pain and just could not get up in time.

Ergashev, 28, is a legitimate hopeful at 140 pounds, and this was sort of a stay-busy for him. The 29-year-old Estrella has a lot more miles on him, a former prospect who’s now 7-5 in his last 12 fights after a promising 22-0 start to his career. He’s gatekeeper material now, and Ergashev finished him like you’d want him to do at this stage.

Ja’Rico O’Quinn UD-8 Oscar Vasquez

Dave Mandel/SHOWTIME

Detroit’s O’Quinn, 24, improves to 14-0-1 (8 KO) with a solid win over an aggressive, tough opponent in the 32-year-old Vasquez (15-3-1, 3 KO). The really big differences here were that O’Quinn was obviously a bit more naturally gifted, and also had the better power and gas tank. Vasquez had a nice first round, pressing O’Quinn and trying to get in his kitchen, and he did that throughout, but ultimately he was outworked and the better, more obvious good stuff came from O’Quinn.

O’Quinn is a confident young fighter who believes he’s ready for top guys at 115/118, but being honest I don’t think he’s there yet. There remains work to do; he’s on the path, but those weight classes have some really good fighters and are fairly deep in terms of talent. Two or three more fights before he takes the crack would probably be beneficial to his development and chances once he gets to that stage, but there’s certainly plenty to like about his potential.

Judges had this 79-73 across the board for O’Quinn, which is also what BLH had, but it wasn’t as totally one-sided as that may seem, and was plenty entertaining. If nothing else, Vasquez is probably going to get more calls as a prospect checker. He seems well-suited for that role, and there’s value in that role.