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Philippines, 23 Feb 2026 |
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CANELO-KOVALEV FIREWORKS WAS ALMOST A DUD By Ed de la Vega, DDS PhilBoxing.com Sun, 03 Nov 2019  MGM GRAND GARDEN ARENA -- Something just didn’t match up for the supposedly big extravaganza at Las Vegas this week. The fight card that would have been a huge one somehow just wasn’t and the media is buzzing that something is amiss. The magic that characterized fights cards involving big names like Pacquiao and others was just absent. To think that the fight that just went on involved Canelo Alvarez, DZAN and Golden Boy Promotions’s Golden Egg. It seems that a rift between GBP and Canelo Alvarez is in the air and the attendance to the fight partially reflected it. Could it be that the fight was not marketed enough? Was it because Kovalev didn’t have the following in Las Vegas? It seems everywhere we have been, we only see the typical Latino fans. We didn’t notice the presence of Eastern Europeans from Kovalev’s home country Russia. Well at least, we didn’t see them parading around the casino waving their flags. We could not ID fans from Florida as well, the now home-based of Kovalev. The weigh-in last Friday says it all. There were far less people in attendance compared to other fights that MGM Grand has hosted before. The fact that Kovalev missed his weight the first time he stood on the scale didn’t help at all. It only served as a preamble to the results that indeed happened.  The Canelo left that takes out Kovalev in the 11th round. Canelo Alvarez won the fight as expected. But it almost never happened and it took 11 long rounds to get it done. Before that Kovalev was not doing too bad. In fact many thought the worse that can happen was a draw. But in the fateful round 11, Canelo got Kovalev off balance landed a clean left that shook Kovalev followed by a strong right that dropped the Russian leading Referee Russel Mora to wave off the fight. Time 2:15 round 11. Canelo Alvarez is now the new WBO Light Heavyweight champion!  Ryan Garcia drops Romero Duno. In the supporting main event, it seem that Team Romero Duno took more than they could bite. They had been openly asking for a fight with the new lightweight sensation from Victorville, CA., Ryan Garcia. They finally got it but the end result of the fight was not what they expected. They found out that Ryan Garcia is for real and he is not the Chimpa Gonzalez they thought he would be. The undefeated Garcia took just a minute and 38 seconds to drop the Filipino challenger. To his credit Duno tried his best to stand up but he was just totally gone and the referee had to support him to prevent him from collapsing to the canvas. Now it’s back to the drawing board for Duno. Adjustments must be made for him to be on the mix again. Perhaps a fight or two with lesser opponents will be needed for him to gain his confidence back, confidence I am sure was blown away by this defeat at the hands of a better lightweight. Most of the pundits on Sec 113 felt that Duno’s game plan was to blame and his coach is responsible for the defeat as well. Duno to the pundits was wrong in trying to intimidate Garcia and get an early KO. He was reckless and took the fight to Garcia. He landed one clean overhand right that Garcia took very well. That’s all Duno could muster. Garcia to his credit stood his ground and when a good right hand landed, Duno found himself on the canvas. In a fight between two undefeated women Senisa Estrada won the vacant NABO bantamweight title at the expense of ex Olympian Marlen Esparza. The fight was cut short on the 9th round when the ring doctor advised the referee that Esparza will not be allowed to continue due to large cut on the forehead from an accidental head butt in the earlier rounds that progressively got bigger. The scores were 90-81, 89-82 and 88-83. Las Vegas rising star Blair Cobbs survived a first round knockdown and won the NABF welterweight belt via a stoppage of Carlos Ortiz. The ring doctor stopped the fight after Ortiz was down just before the round ended. Other results: Evan Holyfield took just 16 seconds to stop Nick Winstead. Hollyfield is the son of former heavy weight champion Evander Hollyfield. Bakkham Murtazaliev won an IBF welterweight eliminator with a UD over Jorge Fortea. Scores 120-108,119-109, 118-110. Tristan Kalkreuth beat Twon Smith via UD. Scores were 40-36, 40, 36 and 39-37 Meiirim Nursultanov won the WBC USNBC Middleweight belt by a wide UD over Cristian Olivas. Scores: 100- 90 on all three judges. Bettemir Melikusiev open the fight card with a KO over Clay Collard at 2:27 of round 4. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.  |
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