|
In his first fight since losing a controversial 12-round decision to middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin on March 18, Brooklyn's Daniel "Miracle Man" Jacobs won a unanimous decision over Luis Arias at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New York's Long Island on Saturday. Those expecting Jacobs, 30, to score a knockout over his relatively inexperienced opponent were disappointed. Despite winning a unanimous decision by scores of 118-109, 120-107 and 119-108, Jacobs couldn't stop his light-punching adversary. Arias, a Milwaukee native who had never before fought a world-class opponent, went the distance by using lateral movement to stay out of trouble and clinching whenever Jacobs (33-2, 29 KOs) landed a hurtful punch. Jacobs scored a fluke knockdown in the 11th round when Arias missed a wild punch and stuck out his right arm to regain his balance, causing his glove to touch the canvas. Jacobs boxed very well and connected frequently enough to win comprehensively, but he also missed a lot of punches. Angered by Arias' prefight trash talk, Jacobs pressed hard down the stretch, looking for a knockout that never came. Arias (18-1, 9 KOs), 27, landed blows to Jacobs' body on occasion but lacked the punching power to stall his foe's advance. Jacobs, perhaps rusty from his layoff of almost eight months, didn't look like the same fighter who came within a whisker of beating Golovkin. But he didn't have to against Arias. Naturally, Jacobs wants a rematch with GGG, but he'll most likely have to settle for the winner of the upcoming match between middleweight titleholder Billy Joe Saunders and David Lemieux, scheduled for Dec. 16. Miller stops Wach in ninth round In what amounted to an audition for a shot at heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, Brooklyn's Jerrell "Big Baby" Miller, stopped Poland's Mariusz Wach in the ninth round of a scheduled 12-rounder. Miller (20-0-1, 18 KOs), 29, wore down Wach (33-3, 17 KOs) with a steady attack, landing looping hooks with both hands. Wach tried to slow Miller's busy offense with jabs and occasional right hands but didn't hit hard enough to discourage Miller. Wach, 37, was also hampered by an injured right hand that was incurred early in the fight. With the Polish fighter helplessly behind on points and boxing one-handed, referee David Fields stopped the fight at 1:02 of the ninth. Whether Miller passed his audition remains to be seen. He doesn't appear to be anywhere near Joshua's level. He's not a huge puncher and is relatively easy to hit, but he comes to fight and isn't afraid to let his hands go. Most likely, that's exactly the kind of challenger the Joshua camp wants while waiting for a big fight with undefeated American titleholder Deontay Wilder. Seldin scores one-sided TKO win over Ortiz Popular Long Island knockout artist Cletus "The Hebrew Hammer" Seldin stopped Mexico's Roberto Ortiz at the 2:43 mark of the third round of a scheduled 10-round junior welterweight bout. Seldin (21-0, 17 KOs), 31, knocked down Ortiz (35-2-1, 26 KOs) twice in the first round. The one-sided beating continued in the second, when Seldin opened a cut over Ortiz's left eye with an overhand right. The ringside doctor checked Ortiz between the second and third rounds but allowed the fight to continue. Seldin attacked again in the third, and after being clipped by an elbow, Ortiz fell to the canvas, his face a mask of blood. The doctor examined Ortiz again and advised the ref to stop the fight.
|
