Floyd Mayweather Pulls Off First Round Victory Against Tenshin Nasukawa

Floyd “Money” Mayweather made very quick work of undefeated kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa on New Year’s Eve in a exhibition boxing bout. The scheduled three round contest ended in just one round after Mayweather scored three knockdowns on Nasukawa. The fight headlined RIZIN 14, as part of a yearly tradition to put on a New Year’s Eve event at Saitama Super Arena in Japan. Nasukawa is one of the promotion’s biggest stars, fighting nine times in the promotion before.

Mayweather was the one chasing Nasukawa throughout the fight, but in the first minute he fought relaxed. The American boxer was smiling at times while not throwing a ton of punches. After a minute Mayweather scored his first knockdown. Tenshin got up but seemed worried, as he looked to his corner before the fight resumed. Tenshin really started to get shot around the ring by Mayweather’s punches. A right hook made Nasukawa’s head snap back into the ropes for the second knockdown. A final left hook from Mayweather had Nasukawa tripping on the ropes, with his corner ending the bout.

Confident throughout, Floyd Mayweather did a celebratory dance after the bell. Prior to the fight Mayweather claimed on Instagram that he cashed out at 9 million dollars for his performance. The bout was first announced in early November, with Floyd claiming days afterwards that he would not perform on the show. Sometime in-between then and now he worked things out with the promotion and agreed to fight once again.

The fight headlined a card that had 12 MMA fights below it. In those fights were two championship bouts, with Kyoji Horiguchi winning the inaugural Bantamweight Championship against Darrion Caldwell, and Kanna Asakura dropping her Atomweight belt to Ayaka Hamasaki.

Canelo Alvarez Wins WBA Super Middleweight Title In MSG Debut

Coming off of his second fight in the biggest battle of his career so far, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez didn’t waste time when defeating Rocky Fielding. The Mexican boxer won strictly off of body punches, scoring four knockdowns in three rounds with all of them below the neck. Canelo won the WBA Super Middleweight title in what was his first bout in the weight class.

Heading into the bout the biggest topic of discussion was how Fielding had a notable reach and height advantage. Fielding was, by some, thought of as someone who might survive Alvarez, instead of being someone who could defeat him. Canelo was able to keep the fight close and personal, giving him the advantage throughout. Reach was made irrelevant as they were fighting inside a phonebooth, and height didn’t matter when the focus in the fight was below the head.

In under nine minutes of boxing, the Briton Super Middleweight did have some offense, landing flurries few and in-between. It looked like his punches were weak, as it never put a hiccup in Canelo’s pace. Fielding’s attack might have involuntarily taken a quantity over quality mindset.

Fielding wasn’t billed as a star leading up to the bout, with most promotion being focused on Canelos’ debut at Madison Square Garden. It was also the prizefighter’s first bout that aired on DAZN, a streaming service which has been heavily pursuing combat sports in 2018. Canelo’s last fight before last weekend was for HBO, who closed their boxing operation permanently earlier this month. That fight was a rematch against Gennady Golovkin after reaching a tie in their first encounter. He handed GGG his first loss after they fought for the 24th round when combining both fights together.

Canelo has many options on the table currently, with the biggest of all most likely being a trilogy bout against GGG. The fight is at least the biggest when it comes to public or mainstream interest. With 10 fights left on his DAZN contract, Canelo has many options for his next step.

Jeff Horn Retires Anthony Mundine In First Fight After Loss

On Friday night Jeff Horn received a sudden first round victory against Anthony Mundine who was fighting his retirement bout. Horn improved his professional record to 19-1-1 at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia, on Friday in only one round. For the near minute and a half that the fight was contested the action was very lopsided in favour of Horn. Horn landed a strong overhand right only seconds into the bout. In a corner of the ring Mundane was dropped with a left hook after a body shot. The ref ended the fight after Mundine struggled to stand-up after his first and only knockdown.

With this win Horn became the WBA Oceania Middleweight and WBO Oriental Middleweight champion. The broadcast described this as Horn’s Road To Redemption after getting his first career loss in June against Terence Crawford, losing the WBO World Welterweight Championship. Horn said he “felt really really strong” at Middleweight, as the boxer had primarily fought in Welterweight for most of his career previously. After the fight Mundane seemed confident in his ability, saying “It’s just boxing man, you get caught sometimes.” Mundane confirmed after the fight that this would be his last fight.

Anthony Joshua Gets Stoppage Alexander Povetkin In The Seventh Round

It was a return to his old self for Anthony Joshua when he closed out his bout against Alexander Povetkin on Saturday. After getting a decision win for the first time earlier this year against Joseph Parker, Joshua was able to finish Povetkin at Wembley. This was Joshua’s third time fighting at the 90,000 capacity venue, last time was when he defeated Wladimir Klitschko in early 2017.

On my personal scorecard the first two rounds went to Povetkin. Joshua wasn’t showing any aggression while Povetkin already looked comfortable. While Povetkin definitely stayed active it was Joshua who took round three and four. Round five was a bit of a bump in the road with Povetkin winning it on my scoresheet. It was tied going into round seven, but because of the result none of this mattered.

In round 7 Joshua started to repeatedly rock Povetkin with strikes. The first time he fell was from a right hook. He had immense trouble standing back up, with half of his torso being out of the ring at one point. It would have been completely justifiable to end the fight here. The ref gave him another chance, only to be floored once again seconds later. Anthony Joshua stays undefeated coming out of the Wembley fight, and definitely stays on many people’s Pound For Pound lists.

My Scoresheet:

Fighter	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	R12	Total
Joshua	9	9	10	10	9	10	W
Povetkin	10	10	9	9	10	9	L