A loaded evening of boxing was capped off with two of the game’s most explosive fighters in dueling principal occasions. Both Terence Crawford and Teofimo Lopez picked up wins, however wins of a really completely different nature.
Crawford defended his WBO welterweight title in opposition to David Avanesyan in Omaha, and as a hard-fought first half of the struggle got here to an in depth, Crawford closed the present with an absolute bomb of a proper hand.
Prior to the knockout, Avanesyan gave Crawford some hassle, continually making use of strain and forcing Crawford to remain busy off the jab to try to preserve some form of distance. After an in depth first three rounds, Crawford started to let unfastened with extra combos, connecting cleanly usually.
As Avanesyan’s strain turned much less efficient, he by no means stopped making an attempt to make one thing occur to vary the momentum. It was in a kind of moments the place Crawford was capable of counter a jab along with his personal proper hand and put Avanesyan out chilly.
Boxing followers will now hope that Crawford is ready to discover his method into a hoop with Errol Spence Jr. in 2023. The two elite welterweights have been negotiating a struggle earlier this 12 months when issues fell aside and Crawford made the struggle with Avanesyan to get some ring time in 2022.
At the identical time Crawford was placing Avanesyan to sleep, Lopez was sweating out a cut up choice win over Sandor Martin in New York City.
Lopez was dropped within the second spherical when Martin countered a lunging punch with a grazing step-back proper hand. Lopez was not badly harm by the punch, however giving up a 10-8 spherical in a 10-round struggle put him in a tough spot.
Martin continued to struggle a disciplined struggle all through, routinely touchdown proper fingers as Lopez threw wild photographs. Martin battled a swollen and bloodied nostril all through the struggle, a results of a foul conflict of heads within the opening spherical.
The struggle was shut down the stretch, with each males having their moments, however when the ultimate bell rang, Martin believed he had accomplished sufficient to win.
One of the official ringside judges was in settlement, giving Martin the struggle by a rating of 95-94. The different judges disagreed, nevertheless, handing down scores of 96-93 and 97-92 in favor of Lopez, with the 97-92 card being notably objectionable.
Lopez has now received two fights since shedding the undisputed light-weight championship to George Kambosos in a shock upset, each coming after Lopez moved up in weight to junior welterweight.
