Undefeated junior welterweight prospect Darwin Price on Saturday continued to impress, as he scored a thrilling seventh-round knockout of Javontae Starks in the headliner of the latest Premier Boxing Champions’ PBC on NBCSN event.
Price drilled his counterpart with another excellent right upstairs, which turned Starks’ legs to gelatin. Price swarmed and pounded away at his head and body until the referee finally jumped in and waived off the mugging at the 1:52 mark. The TKO brought the crowd inside the Cowboys Dancehall in Houston to its feet, capping a solid night of action.
In the co-feature, Kent Cruz toppled fellow unbeaten junior welterweight Rickey Edwards via unanimous eight-round decision, and he did so in dominant fashion. Cruz (11-0, 6 KOs) knocked down Edwards in the second round and should have been credited with another knockdown in the same round when Edwards took a knee. The referee thought otherwise.
From there, Edwards (11-1, 3 KOs) tried everything he could to fight back, but he was rocked several more times in the contest. He never had enough firepower to keep Cruz off of him, and in the end, all three judges ruled in Cruz’s favor via tallies of 77-74, 77-73 and 77-73.
Meanwhile, unbeaten super bantamweight prospect David Perez (8-0, 4 KOs) scored an electrifying one-punch knockout of Gustavo Molina in the sixth round. After dropping Molina (12-13, 5 KOs) in the third, he torched him with a perfect right hook to the chin. Molina fell face first and was completely out cold, forcing the referee to immediately stop the bout at the 2:35 mark.
In the opening bout, lightweight Justin Paulido (8-1, 4 KOs) bested Eric Anton (4-4, 1 KO) via six-round unanimous nod. He won with scores of 59-55 on all three official cards.