By John G. Thompson: The Canadians pitched a near shutout at the Bell Center in Montreal, Quebec, Canada this evening televised live on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights series. Antonin Decarie 25-1 (7 KO’s) headlined against Shamone Alvarez 21-4, with Montreal natives Jo Jo Dan and Ghislan Maduma appearing in the undercard.
Decarie found tremendous success with the straight right against his southpaw opponent from Atlantic City. Decarie put Alvarez down in the fifth with a straight right which split Alvarez’s guard, and continued to land with it in the sixth and seventh. In the eighth, blood was pouring from a cut over Alvarez’s left eye, and Alvarez suffered a flash knockdown from another quick straight right. Alvarez came on strong in the ninth and tenth knowing he needed a knockout to win, but was unable to land anything meaningful. The judges scored it 97-91 (my score), 99-89, and 98-90 all for Decarie.
The match between Ionut Dan Ion AKA Jo Jo Dan 28-1 (15 KO’s) and Steve Forbes 35-9 (11 KO’s) was stopped by the doctors after an unintentional headbutt in the sixth round. The stoppage was somewhat of a blessing as the fight had been less than thrilling. Forbes had been a champion at super featherweight about ten years ago, however, has now lost six of his last nine bouts, including losses to Andre Berto, Demetrius Hopkins, Grady Brewer, Oscar De La Hoya, and Harrison Cuello (a fighter with a record of 18-12-3 at the time). Obviously, Forbes has seen better days. Jo Jo Dan’s only loss came to an undefeated Turkish fighter in a twelve round split decision in Turkey.
Nothing of consequence happened until the sixth round headbutt, though Jo Jo Dan did seem to be coming on stronger before the collision of heads which happened when Forbes was trying to get inside the reach of the taller man. The butt resulted in a deep cut over Forbes’ left eye and the doctors ruled that Forbes was unable to continue, sending the bout to the scorecards. All three judges scored the bout as I did, 58-56 for Jo Jo Dan.
Also televised, Montreal native Ghislan Maduma improved to 3-0 (1 KO’s) by pounding on Isaac Bejarano 9-9-1 (7 KO’s) of Mexico over the course of their four round bout. Ghislan showed speed and skill especially in the second and third rounds as he was able to land on his opponent at will and avoid just about anything Bejarano threw. In the fourth Maduma really punished Bejarano with hard straight rights and left hooks, though somehow he made it to the final bell. Maduma pitched an easy shutout on the scorecards, with one judge actually scoring two of the rounds 10-8.
In the un-televised bouts, Canadians Kevin Bizier (1st round KO), Nicholson Poulard (1st round TKO) and Tyler Asselstine (4th round TKO) also earned victories. However, the Colombian Oscar Rivas broke the shutout with a four round majority decision over David Whittom.