Everything You Need to Know About the Weekend in Boxing

Andrade Cruises to Wide Decision Win over Replacement Opponent Kautondokwa

Walter Kautondokwa was never close to beating Demetrius Andrade Saturday night in Boston. Stepping in as a replacement opponent after Billy Joe Saunders tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, Kautondokwa was simply outclassed by a superior opponent, getting dropped four times before ultimately losing a unanimous 120-104, 120-104, 119-105 decision.

While Kautondokwa deserves credit for stepping in on short notice, having built his resume on unknown African fighters he was never going to beat Andrade. He was dropped in the first, third and fourth rounds before Andrade’s pace slowed (an issue Andrade says was due to reinjuring his shoulder in the fifth round). The fighter from Namibia who came into the fight touting his punching power was only able to land one significant blow over the course of 12 rounds, a fourth-round shot that should have resulted in a double knockdown but was only called in favor of Andrade. There’s no question Billy Joe Saunders would have made a far more compelling opponent, but Kautondokwa did what he could.

With the win, Andrade became the WBO Middleweight champion (the title Saunders vacated after his PED test failure). After the fight, Barry Hearn told reporters that one of the eleven fights on Canelo Alvarez’s record breaking DAZN contract would be against Andrade, and Andrade declared that if Alvarez wanted that fight at 168 he would gladly move up in weight for that matchup. However, with Alvarez’s team being so all over the place about what their future entails, there’s no guarantee that fight will happen anytime soon.

Tevin Farmer Destroys James Tennyson, Kicking off Twitter Beef with Gervonta Davis

Belfast Ireland’s James Tennyson once lost to a fighter with a career 4-68 record, but while that loss was far more embarrassing, Saturday night’s loss to Tevin Farmer likely hurt worse both physically and mentally. Tevin Farmer stopped Tennyson in the fifth round, after assaulting him with body shots that resulted in both a first knockdown and the second knockdown that stopped the fight. Susceptibility to bodys hots is apparently a recurring issue for Tennyson; he was dropped and almost counted out from a body shot in his fight against Martin Ward.

After the fight Farmer expressed a desire to fight Gervonta Davis, which led Davis to take to Twitter to harass Farmer about his four career losses, saying he could beat Farmer and Abner Mares on the same night, and ramble on with all the usual Gervonta Davis trash talk (though he failed to mention Farmer’s decision to sport some horrifically ugly rainbow trunks, which was a big miss).

That fight would be great to see, but Gervonta Davis takes to Twitter to call out every boxer or MMA fighter he sees most Saturday nights, so don’t get your hopes up that his social media trash talk means anything.

Rob Brant Upsets Japanese Star Ryota Murata in 12

Largely unheralded Minnesotan Rob Brant was the underdog in his fight against Japanese former Olympic gold medalist Ryota Murata, but Brant didn’t care about the odds, the number of fans Murata has, or the fact that Murata thought he was going to get a fight with Gennady Golovkin after this one, consistently outworking Murata and winning a unanimous 118-110, 119-109, 119-109 decision. Brant averaged over 100 punches thrown per round, a pace Murata simply could not keep up with despite his consistent pressure and decent bodywork.

Brant indicated after the fight that because of the win, he believes he is now an attractive option to be Golovkin’s next opponent. Brant has only one loss in his career, a decision loss to Jurgen Braehmer in a fight that took place at 168 pounds. Brant was clearly too small for that weight class, leading to questions of how he would deal with someone as strong as GGG. Brant would be the lesser known fighter and a sizeable underdog in that matchup, but he was both of those in the fight with Murata so who knows what would happen? That is, if he ever gets that chance.

Rodriguez Beats Moloney to Set up Showdown With “The Monster”

In a battle of undefeated bantamweights, Puerto Rico’s Emmanuel Rodriguez took an incredibly close, split decision over Australia’s Jason Moloney with two judges scoring the fight 115-113 in his favor and one scoring the fight 115-113 for Moloney. The fight, particularly the last round, was very good and it takes little more than a look at both fighter’s post-fight faces to see how many shots both men landed on each other.

With the win, Rodriguez both retained his IBF title and setup a future fight against Japan’s Naoya “The Monster” Inoue in the next round of the World Boxing Super Series. That fight is, or at least could be interesting. See, some people looked at Rodriguez’s performance and decided he was boxing well enough that he could give Inoue trouble, while others pointed out how many bodyshots he took from Moloney and argued that if he took those kinds of shots from Inoue, he wouldn’t be standing. Either way, Naoya “The Monster” Inoue has looked so unstoppable over the course of his career that any issues Rodriguez could cause the Japanese superstar would be better than most of his opponents have done. And that would be worth watching.

Yunier Dorticos Wins Rare Decision over Veteran Mateusz Masternak

Yunier Dorticos was known as a knockout artist that walked through his opponents, and for a while early on in his fight against Polish veteran Mateusz Masternak it looked like he was going to do it again. Masternak was rocked in the second round, then hurt again in the third, but managed to both stay conscious and stay off the canvas despite the best efforts of Dorticos. To his credit, late in the fight Masternak came on strong and was able to close the gap on the scorecards as Dorticos tired going into the later rounds. Ultimately however, Masternak’s late revival was not enough and he lost a unanimous 116-112, 115-113, 115-113 decision, marking the first decision win for Dorticos since 2014. With the win, Dorticos moves on to face Floyd Mayweather Sr. trained American Andrew Tabiti, who won a boring fight against Russia’s Ruslan Fayfer just last week.