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Top junior lightweight prospect Marc Castro improved to 3-0 (3 KO) with a fourth round stoppage over a gritty but out-gunned Irving Castillo, ending the Canelo vs Saunders prelims in Texas.
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The 21-year-old Castro turned pro in December, and has now fought all of his pro bouts on Canelo Alvarez undercards, earning stoppages each time out. The Fresno native is a prospect Matchroom love, a very good amateur who seems suited for the pro ranks.
He came out absolutely firing on Castillo (9-2, 6 KO) here, throwing everything and the kitchen sink in the first round. But while Castillo got a bloodied nose out of it, he didn’t go down, and it seemed pretty obvious Castro had probably spent too much energy in that first round, given that he didn’t get the finish.
So Castillo hung around for two more rounds and change, but Castillo was continuing to do damage, and referee Rosario Solis called a halt to the bout at 2:04 of the fourth round, which was probably the right call. Castillo didn’t seem to have much chance at all of getting back into it or coming back to win, and he was taking punishment.
Another blue chipper, 22-year-old lightweight prospect Keyshawn Davis made it 3-0 (2 KO) in his young pro career, as he fought for the third time since turning pro on Feb. 27. Here, he won all six rounds against an awkward Jose Antonio Meza (7-5, 2 KO), who proved capable of surviving and hanging around, and Davis took the rounds, did his work every round, and didn’t press for anything big.
Like Castro, Davis is a real top prospect and someone you should have on your radar. He was considered the United States’ best hope for a gold medal — men’s boxers haven’t won one for the U.S. since Andre Ward in 2004 — in Tokyo, but went pro and is starting to make a few waves. It’s still very early days, obviously, but a lot to like here.
“You can’t knock everybody out,” Davis said after the fight. “What really surprised me was he was so awkward. With awkward fighters — like (Emanuel) Navarrete, he’s so awkward you don’t know where his punches are coming from. That’s kind of how I felt today. We’ll get back to the drawing board and do it better next time.”
Other Results
- Christian Alan Gomez Duran TKO-2 Xavier Wilson: Duran, 27, is promoted by Canelo, so he keeps getting these prelim spots. He’s not a prospect, not close to being a contender at this point. But he brings some fun style to the ring, goes for knockouts, and at 20-2-1 (18 KO) with a powerful connection, maybe there’s a title fight in his not-too-distant future. Here, he stopped Wilson (11-3-1, 1 KO) inside of two rounds.
- Kelvin Davis UD-4 Jan Marsalek: The 24-year-old Davis is the older brother of Keyshawn, and being honest not near the same level of prospect. He got a real scare here, too, as Marsalek (8-3, 7 KO) dropped him hard late in the fourth and final round, but Davis (2-0, 1 KO) did survive and get deserved scores of 38-37 across the board, having pretty clearly won the first three rounds. Davis is long and tall and schooled well and all that, but there seems to be a fairly low ceiling here for him as a pro. We’ll see going forward, getting dropped isn’t the biggest thing, but this might be a Matthew Hatton to Keyshawn’s Ricky sort of thing.