Spike TV delivered a knockout—or two—in its premiere of Premier Boxing Champions.
Andre Berto (shown in file photo above) picked apart a competitive Josesito Lopez before his home crowd before ending the fight in the sixth. Berto landed flush with a right cross to send Lopez down in the sixth. Seconds after the knockdown, another knockdown coaxed a quick, controversial, no-count stoppage from the referee in the main event.
The former WBC and IBF welterweight titlist added an interim WBA strap to his collection in moving to 30-3.
Two heavy heavyweights tallied the punch counts of lightweights while still unleashing big-man power on the televised Ontario, California card.
Former heavyweight contender Chris Arreola endured several Curtis Harper power shots before inflicting a dramatic left-right knockdown that sent his 265-pound opponent rumbling across the ring until he registered on the Richter scale upon impact with the mat. Harper hung on for the remainder of the round but walked on Queer Street and held and jabbed away from going down at all times.
A refreshed Harper won the second before knocking a smile onto Arreola’s face with a flush right in the third that appeared to even the scorecards. The Floridian hurt Arreola in the fourth with a left-right combination and a scary uppercut that confirmed the Californian’s chin. Arreola regained his footing in the fifth, with both fighters landing big shots often and avoiding them rarely. In the sixth, the local fighter, despite nursing a right-arm injury, took control punishing his opponent against the ropes in his best stanza since the opening one. The seventh round continued the rock-‘em-sock-em-robots affair as Arreola hurt Harper badly on three occasions but the big man refused to go down. This brawl plays as action-packed as it gets for heavyweights. Exhausted but still exerting, the fighters throw but don’t dodge in a final frame that witnesses Arreola searching in vain to end the fight with the same flash that he started it.
Breitbart Sports scores it 77-74 Arreola in a supersized battle of big bellies, big hands, big chins, and big hearts. The judges see it unanimously for Arreola.
In the opening televised bout, Shawn Porter smelled blood. He went in for the kill.
The Ohio welterweight knocked out a game, last-minute replacement of Roberto Garcia in Erick Bone on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike Friday night. Bone fought competitively as an effective counterpuncher for four rounds before slipping awkwardly in the fifth. Porter stalked a bloody and limping Bone, pummeling his midsection before Bone took a respite by taking a knee. Porter closed the show with a big, looping right following by a massive left hook. Bone, now on the wrong side of the ropes, rose after ten counts.
“When you have a guy hurt,” Porter told Spike’s Jimmy Smith, “go to the body.”
The stocky pugilist improved his record to 25-1-1.
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