Broner destroys Rees; Bika decisions Sjekloca

By ESB - 02/16/2013 - Comments

broner33By Bill Phanco: WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner (26-0, 22 KO’s) was just too strong for challenger Gavin Rees (37-2-1, 18 KO’s) tonight in beating Rees by a 5th round TKO victory at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Broner put Rees down twice, and stopped him shortly after dropping him with a left to the body in the 5th. Broner was hammering away on Rees after he got up, and this led to Rees’ trainer Gary Lockett throwing in the towel to stop the punishment.

The knockdown in the 5th came when the two fighters were in close, and Rees seemed to be confused, as if he thought the referee was going to break them because they had stopped punching. Broner used the opportunity to hit Rees with a crunching left to the body that put Rees down on the canvas.

In the 4th round, Broner hit Rees with a short right uppercut while the two were in close, and the shot sent Rees down on the canvas. Rees wasn’t expecting the shot, and it flattened him.

Rees fought hard in the first couple of rounds, and was landing well with body shots, and looping right hands that sometimes ended up hitting Broner in the back of the head. Going into the 3rd round, Rees was confident at the success he had found in the first two rounds. However, Broner started sitting down on his punches more in the 3rd round, and he was pretty much hitting Rees at will. Late in round, Broner hurt Rees with a nice fight hand that backed Rees up to the ropes. Broner then unloaded with a salvo of shots that was interrupted by the end of the round. Rees looked like he was ready to go in that round.

After the fight, Broner said “I had to see how much gas was in that Toyota…[we’re at] different levels. I’m sorry I didn’t give you much to see. If they didn’t stop the fight then he was going to go to sleep anyway.”

***

Sakio Bika (31-5-2, 21 KO’s) dominated Nikola Sjekloca (25-1, 7 KO’s) in beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 119-109, 118-112, 120-108 in their WBC super middleweight eliminator bout. Bika will now face former IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute for the WBC title.

Bika was constantly busy, nailing Sjeklocan with hooks to the head and body. Bika just kept a busy pace that Sjekloca wasn’t able to match, and that’s how he ended up crusing to a decision. Sjekloca started off well in the 1st round when he briefly opened up with his offense. However, after getting hit with some hard hooks from Bika, Sjekloca went into a shell and only rarely threw punches the rest of the way. Bika hurt Sjekloca with a right to the head that staggered him in the 2nd, but other than that there was nothing eventful in the fight. The crowd booed the non action from time to time, but it didn’t little to cause the fighters to pick up the pace.

Boxing results:

Edner Cherry TKO 6 Vincente Escobedo
Robert Easter TKO 1 Jose Valderrama
Jamel Herring TKO 3 Carlos Lopez
Rau’shee Warren TKO 2 Richard Hernandez