This past weekend of fight festivities had its share of revamped fighters, soundly beaten foe, entertaining knockouts and a newly crowned heavyweight title holder.
The weekend started off at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas, NV, as the former two time world champion Joel Casamayor 37-4-1 (22) got back in the win column by unanimously defeating an overmatched Jason Davis 11-5-1 (3) in eight rounds.
Casamayor came into the bout weighing in at 146-pounds, the heaviest weight he has seen in his thirteen years as a professional boxer. Davis, Casamayor’s defeated foe now falls to four consecutive losses.
The card not only featured the former world champion Zab Judah 38-6 (26) as the main event, but Judah also doubled as co promoter of the event, so the match making was no doubt in the thirty-year old fighters favor.
Judah’s opponent, Ubaldo Hernandez 22-20-2 (10) who came into the bout with back to back defeats under his belt, called it quits after hitting the canvas three times from body shots, giving Judah the victory at the 35 second mark in the second round.
Saturday evening from Germany, the night featured two former title holders earning themselves a victory, as well a newly crowned heavyweight title holder.
The former WBA heavyweight titlist John Ruiz 44-8-1 (30) stopped the very game Adnan Serin 19-11-1 (7) in seven rounds to set Ruiz up with a possible title bout against David Haye.
The former WBO heavyweight title holder Sergey Lyakhovich 24-3 (25) destroyed journeyman Jeremy Bates 22-17-1 (18) in the opening round, giving the “White Wolf” his first victory since losing out to Nikolay Valuev February of 2008.
The main event featured the tallest heavyweight champ in history, the 7-foot Nicolay Valuev 50-2 (34) who lost his WBA portion of the heavyweight titles to David Haye 23-1 (21) via majority decision. Haye ran for the most part countering the bigger as well as slower Valuev. Valuev stalked Haye and fired off multiple jabs but in the end the scores were read in Haye’s favor 112-116, 112-116 and 114-114.
To end the weekend’s slew of fights, HBO featured two bouts that were meaningful fights as well as wins.
The once beaten Alfredo Angulo 17-1 (14) destroyed a very game and tough as nails Harry Joe Yorgey 22-1-1 (10) in two rounds. All though Yorgey seemingly faster than Angulo, the former undefeated fighter cold not match Angulo’s power which caught up with Yorgey in the ending of the second round, ending the fight and the night for Yorgey in round three, knocking out Yorgey before he even hit the canvas.
To end the night of fight’s, the undefeated IBO light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson 29-0 (17) soundly defeated his former foe Glen Johnson 49-13-2 (33) in twelve rounds, gaining his second win over the “Road Warrior”.
All though the first go around, I myself scored it for Johnson, Dawson left no doubt this time around, beating Johnson to the punch. All though Johnson did try to pressure Dawson, “Bad” Chad proved to be the better of the two by staying away from a slew up punches from Johnson, out landing Johnson to earn the win via scores of 115-113, 115-113 and 117-111.
