Provodnikov appeared to have the fight in the bag in the 1st round when he put Algieri down twice on the deck with big power shots. The first was a left hook that caught him on his right eye to drop him. The second knockdown was from a right hand to the head. Algieri’s right closed up fast from the left hook, but to his credit he was able to make it through the entire fight despite losing sight out of the eye in the 12th.
Algieri reminded me a lot of Floyd Mayweather Jr with the way that he was moving around and switching hands to hit Provodnikov with. It was pure class.
The judges scored the fight 114-112, 114-112 for Algieri, and 117-109 for Provodnikov.
It was difficult to give rounds to Provodnikov after the 1st because he was getting out-worked, and just loading up with single shots and missing badly. Provodnikov struggled with trying to cut off the ring on Algieri, and even when he did corner him, he wasn’t throw his shots in combination like he needed to. Provodnikov was taking too long to let his hands go, and this enabled Algieri to get away from him most of the time without getting hit.
Provodnikov complained after the fight that Algieri was just running from him all night long. He sounded bitter in saying “Runners aren’t my style. He was jabbing and touching me. This is the worst style for me. I have trouble with that style. I like guys that stand in front of me and fight me. I promised that I gave an exciting fight. The fans weren’t sleeping.”
Provodnikov basically confessed that he could only beat guys that stand and trade with him, and that was kind of a startling confession. After tonight, everyone is going to be trying to box him because they’re not going to play his game just so that he has a chance to win.
With this loss, Provodnikov and his trainer Freddie Roach’s stock really drops off significantly. You have to blame Roach for not having alternative plan for Provodnikov to shift into in the fight. He seemed to stay with the original plan for the entire fight, and Roach wasn’t lighting a fire under his backside in between rounds the way he needed to.
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WBO light middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade (21-0, 14 KO’s) had it easy in beating up and stopping a badly outclassed Chris Rose (25-2-1, 7 KO’s) in the 7th round. The referee stopped the fight in the 7th at the request of Rose’s corner after Andrade opened up with a storm of unanswered head shots that had Rose bleeding from the nose and looking ready to go.
Despite trash talking Andrade at the weigh-in, Rose showed little in the way of talent. He was knocked down in the 1st round from a straight left hand from Andrade to the head. And then later in the 3rd, Andrade caught Rose with a right hook to the head to put him on the deck for the second time in the fight.
Rose failed to throw enough punches in the fight to keep Andrade honest. Rose was covering up 90% of the time in the fight, and this made it easy for Andrade to tee off with his power shots.
Overall, Rose looked like someone who shouldn’t have been ranked No.1 by the WBO. They had Rose ranked above Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Vanes Martirosyan, James Kirkland and Jermell Charlo. The way that Rose fought, he looked like he didn’t belong in the top 50.
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Other boxing results on the card:
Sean Monaghan UD 10 Elvir Muriqi
Chris Galeano UD 4 Malik Jackson
Simeon Hardy TKO 2 Malcolm Terry