- 2017 could not have gotten off to a much better start. Last week blessed fans with plenty of action and the most notable fight was a super middleweight unification bout between Badou Jack and James DeGale on Showtime. DeGale got off to a quick start by dropping Jack in the opening round and he controlled many of the early rounds. However, later in the fight Jack started to land his power punches more consistently and the fight became extremely close. In the final round Jack dropped DeGale and seemed to have him in bad shape. DeGale showed why he is a champion through and finished strong, living the decision in the hands of the judges. One of those judges scored the fight for DeGale while the other two had the fight a draw. While a draw is always somewhat disappointing it wasn't a bad decision and the fight is an early contender for the 2017 Fight of the Year. During post-fight interviews DeGale showed off his now toothless smile while Jack and promoter Mayweather put a damper on things by claiming the decision was a robbery and stating that Jack would be moving up to light heavyweight, dismissing a rematch with DeGale.
- The other fight on Saturday's Showtime card announced the presence of a new star in boxing. That star is Gervonta Davis who, at only 22 years old, challenged light heavyweight world champion Jose Pedraza for his strap. Davis started off fast and never really let up more than a round or two. For some reason Pedraza, the taller, longer man decided to bang with Davis instead of staying on the outside and catching him coming in. This strategy proved disastrous for Pedraza who took a tremendous amount of punishment until a massive right hook sent him down in the seventh round and ended the fight. Davis is young, skilled, and powerful and should remain a champion for a long time.
- Saturday night's action on Showtime was preceded by fights on Showtime Extreme. Those fights were headlined by a bout between Amanda Serrano and Yazmin Rivas, a rare televised women's fight. From the start Serrano proved to be too much for Rivas who has been fighting professionally for 16 years. Serrano tried her best to stop Rivas but despite dominating the fight she had to settle for a wide unanimous decision win that allowed her to keep her WBO world female super bantamweight title. It was a nice performance from Serrano who did enough to earn another televised fight. Also on that card was a bout between Ievgen Khytrov and Immanuwel Aleem that is an early contender for Fight of the Year and the third round of that fight is a contender for 2017 Round of the Year. Khytrov got dropped in that third round only to come back in the later rounds to hurt Aleem and the action was face paced and back and forth throughout. In the sixth round Khytrov had Aleem up against the ropes and was unloaded power punches when Aleem moved off the ropes just enough to connect with a big overhand right that dropped Khytrov and while Khytrov did make it to his feet the fight would be over moments later when Aleem connected with a left hook that forced the ref to end things.
- Last week's action actually started on Friday night on Spike when Erislandy Lara put his IBO and WBA world junior middleweight titles on the line against Yuri Foreman. This was Foreman's first big fight since returning from a brief retirement but the now ordained Orthodox Rabbi did not look like his slick former self. Foreman, just a shell of the skilled boxer he once was was no match for Lara. In the third round a trip was ruled a knockdown against Foreman but the point wouldn't matter much was Lara would catch him with a perfectly placed left uppercut that knocked him out just a round later. The other fight on that card was another mismatch between Anthony Dirrell and Norbert Nemesapati. Dirrell controlled every round of that fight on his way to forcing Nemesapati to retire on his stool following the sixth round.
WEEKLY RECORD: 4-1-1
MONTHLY RECORD: 4-1-1
OVERALL RECORD: 815-232-34
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