By Srithar Visuasam: Austin Trout (24-0, 14 KOs) put on an impressive display of boxing against Australian Frank Lo Porto (15-5-2, 7 KOs) last night at El Paso, Texas, in defending his WBA super welterweight crown via sixth round stoppage.
Lo Porto, who took the fight at short notice after Trout’s original opponent, Japan’s Yuki Nonaka (21-8-2, 7 KOs) pulled out with a broken hand, proved he could take a punch, but apart from punch resistance, unfortunately hardly proved a worthy world title challenger.
From the outset, Lo Porto tried to charge in head first and displayed aggressive intentions to the 26 year old American champ, but Trout was too smart and quick for the 33 year old Australian and had an answer to any form of aggressive move. Trout scored a knockdown in the first and his quick fire combinations looked set to end the fight very quickly with the gap in class quite evident.
Trout kept a busy pace in round two, trying to put away Lo Porto with a predictable story unfolding, with Trout throwing the combinations and Lo Porto ducking and moving trying to avoid getting hit and throwing little in return. Despite Lo Porto’s ability to avoid many of Trout’s shots, he was still getting caught with a regularity that saw the fight always looking as it was going to stopped at any second. By the end of round three, Lo Porto’s corner threatened to stop the fight in an attempt to fire him up.
Despite the words of motivation, Lo Porto seemed unable to mount any form of meaningful offense for the remainder of the bout, but demonstrated a solid chin and never looked like giving up. However by round six, Trout’s offense began to land at a regularity that was taking a heavy toll on the Aussie and towards the end of the round, Lo Porto’s corner were waving at the referee to stop the fight, the referee kept the fight going but obliged shortly after waving off the contest 2:32 into round six.
With the defence of the title done, what can be taken out of the performance for Austin ‘No Doubt’ Trout? In summary, the fight was a glorified sparring session against an opponent who proved durable, but hardly a threat on an offensive front and on the night proved a fighter several rungs below him.
The positives of the fight for Trout was that he got to showcase his ability as the headline fighter on ShoBox, with a much larger audience able to witness his skills given it was his first premium cable appearance. In addition, the fight was beamed live into Australia on FoxSports with the fight against Lo Porto serving as an appetiser for what should be his next bout, a defense of his title against another Australian, mandatory challenger ‘interim champion’ Anthony Mundine (43-4, 25 KOs).
Mundine, a former two time WBA super middleweight and IBO middleweight champion, and Trout over the past few months have shared a number of exchanges over Twitter, with a war of words taking place between the two. This stems from the inability of the two to agree on terms on a fight on August 24 with the disagreements between the two largely stemming from alleged ‘options’ on Mundine should he have been successful in his bout with Trout.
Mundine’s response to the situation was to not take up the fight and instead fight Rigoberto Alvarez (27-4, 20 KOs), the man who Trout defeated to capture the WBA 154 pound title earlier this year. Mundine defeated Alvarez last month via a wide 12 round unanimous decision victory to earn the right to face Trout and with the mandatory status, avoiding the ‘options’ scenario in the process.
Therefore, the stage is set for Austin Trout v Anthony Mundine, with the Lo Porto bout further setting the scene for the matchup between the two.
Though dominant on Lo Porto, the performance cannot be considered one that will translate into a similar outcome on Mundine, with Mundine a completely different fighter to Lo Porto in so many ways and certainly a genuine world class opponent.
Regardless, it will be interesting now to see whether pen is put to paper on the bout and assuming the bout taking place, this will be one of the exciting bouts at junior middleweight set for the new year.