Hughes Robbed, Robles Upsets McGregor
Two major cards took place on a relatively quiet weekend of boxing. The action kicked off in Edinburgh, Scotland. As the hometown hero "Lightning" Lee McGregor got upset and derailed by largely unknown Mexican contender Erik Robles. In what is a Fight of the Year, candidate Robles came out like shot-out of a cannon in the early going putting rounds in the bank. Unleashing combinations at breakneck speeds in a phonebooth fight, he was simply out-working and out-hustling the home countrymen. However, McGregor started rallying back, beginning in the fourth, as his more precise punching and harder punches were having their effect. McGregor was also winning the fight when it was on the outside, which in retrospect, should have been his game plan. It looked as if Robles was fading as his punch output began to slow down.
McGregor appeared to even the fight up going into the last couple of rounds landing body shots and his perfectly placed uppercuts McGregor even things up. However, it was Robles who got his second wind and put together large rallies and scored in combinations, and was able to hurt McGregor Several times and sustained rallies. In the 10th round, the Scotsman seemed to be in trouble as Robles landed with multiple combinations that stunned McGregor. Robles knowing he needed to win a clear-cut decision against the hometown hero, and closed the show excitingly and definitively. The cards went the correct way to the deserving Mexican road dog and not the hometown fighter by scores of 115-113X2 and 116-113.
On the undercard, Harlem Eubank gave perhaps a career-best performance. He controlled Ishmael Ellis with his jab. The better athlete, quicker, and with much quicker reflexes. By the midway point of the scheduled eight rounder it was clear that Ellis was no longer interested in winning the bout and was simply trying to survive. Repeatedly Eubank tried to pick up the pace and bring the fight to his outmatched opponent, and time and again, Ellis clinched, held, and smothered Eubank. Eubank dropped his man in the sixth, and things went from bad to worse for Ellis! He was deducted a point by the referee in the seventh and was forced to fight. Quickly thereafter, it lights out for Ellis. Eubank scored with a pair of right hands that put Ellis on the canvas and forced his cornerman onto the apron as the referee in charge waved the bout off.
The action moved to the US in the small town of Shawnee, Oklahoma. If the first card produced the Round of the Year in the tenth, this card produced the "Robbery of the Year" as Australian George Kambosos got yet another gift decision. This time against Maxi Hughes of England. After an uneventful first round, Hughes got going with a counter hook that landed on the temple of Kambosos. The Brit scored with another two-piece to the body of the Australian. Kambosos struggled to get things going and was lounging in with a jab and getting caught with clean counter shots. In what was not a high-output fight by either man, many of the rounds looked the same as Kambosos would try and jab his way in and get caught with clean straight lefts and counter hooks for his efforts. Hughes closed out his most dominant round of the fight in the fifth with a clean counter shot that buckled Kambosos and worsened a small cut on his eyebrow.
A nasty clash of heads in the sixth opened a pretty on Highes. However, it seemed not to affect him at all. Hughes continued his precision counter-punching. It appeared that Kambosos needed something dramatic in the final two rounds, and he tried picking up the pace as Hughes stayed in the pocket and stayed in control. A left hand backed up Kambosos in the 11th in a very good round for the Brit. Hughes closed the show well in the 12th and scored with a few single right hands that halted the Australian in his tracks as it appeared Hughes rolled to a wide points victory until the judges did the unthinkable and awarded the fight to Kambosos as David Sutherland handed in a poor card of 114-114 even, but was overruled, by the egregious 115-112 card handed in by Gerald Ritter and the criminal card handed in by Josef Mason of 117-111 in favor of Kambosos.
In the chief support of the evening, Keyshawn Davis stayed undefeated with a dominant one-sided beatdown of fringe contender Francesco Patera. The US Olympian was in complete control. Firing off a jab and scoring with pin-point accurate power shots throughout the fight. Davis, who has run his mouth about fellow middleweight contenders, Floyd Schofield and Frank Martin, dominated the fight but failed to stop Paera. His best shot came in the eighth round when he scored with a counter right that dropped and badly hurt Patera. Davis pushed on the gas but was unable to get his man out.
