By GM Ross – Saturday night, April 17, was an evening of mixed emotions at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. Many, no doubt, watched in disgust as the Montreal Canadiens squandered a 4-1 lead, losing to the Washington Capitals in NHL playoff action. Lucian Bute, however, salvaged the evening for the city’s sports fans, scoring a third round knockout over the always dangerous Edison Miranda. With the victory Bute retained his IBF super middleweight title, along with his perfect 25-0-0 record. For more details regarding the Bute-Miranda contest please see Paul Strauss’ article, available here..
On the undercard, Renan St. Juste retained his NABA and WBC Continental Americas middleweight titles via a ninth round TKO of Dionisio Miranda of Colombia. According to the most recent WBA rankings (wbaonline.com), St. Juste was eighth in the world coming into the contest, two spots behind highly touted American prospect Daniel Jacobs. At 37 years of age, time is quickly running out on St. Juste’s career. Hopefully Canadian fans will see him matched with a top ten middleweight in the not too distant future. With David Lemieux joining St. Juste at middleweight after a brief, undefeated reign as Canadian Boxing Federation super middleweight champion, Canada’s next world champion may very well emerge from the middleweight division.
Jason Hayward, of Saint John’s , Newfoundland, always seems ready and willing to face whoever is put in front of him. The Newfoundlander certainly hasn’t taken the easy route in his career. His resume includes losses to some of Canada’s top boxers including Buzz Grant, Pier Olivier Cote and Andrew Singh Kooner. We can now add Sebastien Gauthier to that list. Gauthier thoroughly outpointed the fearless Newfoundlander in their super bantamweight match-up, earning an eight round unanimous decision. Judges Richard DeCarufel and Pasquale Procopio both scored the fight 79-72, while Jean Gauthier had it 80-71.
Pier Olivier Cote, the Canadian Boxing Federation’s super featherweight champion and Canadian Professional Boxing Council’s number one ranked lightweight, made short work of Mexico’s Hugo Pacheco, knocking the sub five-hundred fighter out in the third round of their scheduled six round super featherweight affair. According to the Canadian Press, Cote scored two knockdowns on his way to victory.
In other action at the Bell Centre, Nathalie Forget of Montreal lost a six round unanimous decision to Dominga Olivo of Brooklyn, New York, in the women’s super bantamweight division and Juan Sanchez of Halifax lost his super middleweight four rounder to Francy Ntetu of Chicoutimi. The loss was Sanchez’s third in a row, while Ntetu maintained his undefeated record, moving to 3-0-0.
On Friday night, April 16, in Salisbury, Maryland, Darnell Boone of Atlanta, Georgia, scored a huge upset victory over Adonis Stevenson of Longueuil, Quebec, stopping the Canadian prospect in the second round of their scheduled eight round bout. On paper, it looked as though the 13-0-0 Stevenson was destined for an easy victory. After all, Boone’s record coming in to the contest was an unimpressive 16-15-2, having lost his last five in a row and seven of his last ten. Yet, somehow, Boone pulled out an astonishing performance, sending Stevenson back to the drawing board. It’s entirely possible that the Canadian hopeful was suffering from a bit of ring rust, having fought only once during the previous year. At 32 years of age, this is Stevenson’s prime – his time to shine. He cannot afford another loss to an opponent of this calibre if his world title aspirations are to remain plausible.
Since last week’s article regarding Steve Claggett’s challenge to Buzz Grant and Logan McGuinness there has been considerable debate regarding how North Carolina prospect Dominic DeSanto would fare in Canadian rings. Enough debate, I think, to warrant a brief summary of DeSanto’s career for Canadian fight enthusiasts. DeSanto is a hard-hitting lightweight/welterweight with a professional record of 5-0-1, with two no contests. All five of his victories have come by way of stoppage. On the other hand, DeSanto has faced only one fighter with a winning record (according to Boxrec.com). This was Eliud Torres of Pennsylvania, who managed to fight DeSanto to a four round draw. Upon viewing footage of one of DeSanto’s fights, however, I can assure readers that the twenty year old American is a skilful boxer, capable of providing plenty of excitement for Canadian fight fans. I’m convinced DeSanto would be a great test for any of the country’s top lightweights. That being said, it would be nice to have the Canadian title (whether it be CBF or CPBC) sorted out before looking outside the country for match-ups.