Before Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Diaz engaged in “The Rematch” the co main event featured a fight between undefeated “Golden Child” Daniel Jacobs (20-0, 17 KOs) against Russian prospect Dmitry Pirog (16-0, 13 KOs). The fight started off with Jacobs trying to catch Pirog with a big right hand but it missed the very relaxed Pirog who set the tone of fight by backing up the Brooklyn native throughout the fight. Jacobs looked uncomfortable all night as Pirog’s movement didn’t allow him to land anything big and sometimes nothing at all. Pirog on the other hand threw and landed less punches but it seemed that every time he connected it noticeably affected the confused Jacobs. By the time the fifth round came along a pattern was visibly established as Pirog’s relaxed attack on a back pedaling Jacobs set up an interesting “right – left – right pivot foot stance change” that ended with a crushing right hand to Jacobs chin. Pirog’s statute like pose with his hands raised in the direction Jacobs woke up looking at, stunned the fans in attendance but the way the fight was unfolding it’s hard to imagine ending any other way.

With the knockout win Dmitry Pirog improves to 17-0, 14 KOs and claims the WBO middleweight title vacated by Sergio Martinez. Daniel Jacobs drops to 20-1, 17 KOs. Dmitry Pirog showed some very good skills in his first American performance, definetly a fighter to watch in the near future.

In a glorified sparring session Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (27-1-1, 18 KOs) fought former mentor Joel Casamayor (37-4-1, 22 KOs) in a 10 round Jr. Welterweight fight. Guerrero hurt Casamayor with his left hand throughout the fight but was never able to finish off a well past his prime Cuban south paw. Only one thing surprised me about this fight and that was the knockdown Guerrero suffered from a right jab in the final round. The hot and cold performing Guerrero improves to (28-1-1, 18 KOs) while Joel Casamayor drops to (37-5-1, 22 KOs) who both showed more enthusiasm after the fight than during.

In a Lightweight showdown former two-division champion Jorge Linares (28-1, 19 KOs) squared up against former title challenger Rocky Juarez (28-6-1, 20 KOs) in a 10 round fight. Linares outboxed an inactive Juarez for the majority of the 10 rounds using his very slick counterpunching skills to dictate the pace of the fight. Juarez was doing all he could but was unable to land anything of any substance on the fast-moving Linares. Using Juarez aggression against him, Linares caught Juarez with a left uppercut in the fifth round for the only knockdown in the fight. The lackluster bout had it’s best moments in the final round when Juarez aggression started to pay off as he landed some clean punches on Linares to the point of making him go on the defensive, but in typical Juarez fashion it was too little to late. Jorge Linares who improved to 29-1, 19 KOs showed some very good skills while completely outclassing Rocky Juarez (28-7-1, 20 KOs), in an effort to erase any memory of his devastating KO loss last year.

More Results:

Sakio Bika (28-4-2, 19 KOs) was disqualified in the first round after he knockout Jean Paul Mendy (29-0-1, 16 KOs) while he was down on one knee. Bika overwhelmed Mendy early and when he trapped him in the corner he rocked him with several shots, Mendy finally went down to one knee leaving his chin completly exposed. Bika then threw a very dangerous right uppercut that put Mendy on his face.

Frankie Gomez (5-0, 5 KOs) KO1 Ronald Peterson (2-3, 2 KOs)

Seth Mitchell (18-0-1, 12 KOs) KO1 Derek Bryant (20-6-1, 17 KOs)

George Groves (10-0, 8 KOs) TKO6 Alfredo Contreras (11-8-1, 5 KOs)

Juan Manuel Montiel (6-3-1, 1 KO) UD Mike Peralta (4-6, 1 KO)

Line of the Night:

The Line of the Night came via Michael Buffer when before announcing the decision to the Linares vs Juarez fight he said “After 10 exciting rounds of boxing…”.

I apologized in his behalf to the people watching the fight with me.