Naoya Inoue TKO-3 Michael Desmarinas
“The Monster” lived up to his billing tonight in ESPN’s main event, completely demolishing challenger Michael Desmarinas with three body shot knockdowns before ultimately stopping him in the third round. Desmarinas came out clearly aware of Inoue’s reptutation for punching power and basically ran around the ring as much as he possibly could before Inoue hunted him down, digging to the body with left hooks. The first knockdown came in the second round with a wicked left hook to the liver during Round 2.
In the third round Inoue (21-0, 18 KOs) would target the same area, wilting Dasmarinas (30-3-1, 20 KOs), until he ultimately put him down with another liver shot. Dasmarinas would just barely beat the count this time, but once Inoue hit him in the same spot, dropping him for a third time, the referee immediately stepped in to wave off the fight at the 2:45 mark.
Mikaela Mayer UD-10 Erica Farias
In the women’s co-feature bout, Mikaela Mayer (15-0, 5 KOs) handled her business against a game Erica Farias (26-5, 10 KOs) to take a unanimous decision over 10 rounds of action, retaining her WBO junior lightweight title. Farias came out guns blazing early, but by the middle rounds Mayer’s reach, educated jab, and right hand to tame Farias, particularly down the second half of the fight.
In the end the three official judges turned in one scorecard of 97-93, and two of 98-92, all in favor of Mayer. BLH scored the fight 97-93 for Mayer as well. With the win Mayer retains her WBO title and moves on to bigger and better things.
Isaac Dogboe MD-10 Adam Lopez
In a fight that many expected to be the best bout on the main card, Adam Lopez and Isaac Dogboe delivered, duking it out over 10 full rounds with plenty of back and forth action. Dogboe started off quickly, essentially ambushing Adam Lopez early, not giving him time to think or feel his way into a boxing match.
While that tactic worked well for Dogboe early, with him landing a lot of clean power shots, Dogboe (22-2, 15 KOs) did start to fade in the second half where Lopez (15-3, 6 KOs) was able to press and land some good shots of his own. There were a number of close rounds in this fight with neither corner confident in how the rounds were being scored. When it was all said and done the official judges had it 95-95, 97-93, 96-94, giving Dogboe a majority decision win. I scored the fight a 95-95 even for BLH.
