Nonito Donaire continued his impressive late-career run tonight in Showtimes’s main event, stopping Reymart Gaballo on a 4th round left hook to the liver that put Gaballo down for the count.
Donaire (42-6, 28 KOs) come out pressuring Gaballo (24-1, 20 KOs) but Gaballo was game and was prepared to enact his gameplan, utilizing his jab and attempting to counter Donaire coming in. That would pose Donaire at least a little trouble as he tried to gauge his distance, but he managed to find his range with his right hand early while he struggled looking for his left hook. Those problems would be relatively short-lived, though, as Donaire would uncork his patented left hook Round 4 — though this time to the body — that landed right to the liver of Gaballo, putting him down for the ten count with the official ending coming at the 2:59 minute mark.
In the post-fight interview Donaire would admit that Gaballo came out with a much different style than he expected which caused him issues landing his counters, but managed to find the fight-ending shot despite crediting Gaballo as a tough fighter that was difficult to figure out. With the win Donaire re-emphasized his interest in a rematch of his Fight of the Year against Naoya Inoue, saying he believes his promoter Richard Schaefer will deliver the fight.
Cody Crowley UD-10 Kudratillo Abdukakhorov (95-94, 97-92, 98-91)
The welterweight division had an upset tonight, with Cody Crowley outworking and frankly beating up Kuratillo Abdukakhorov over 10 rounds to take a big win. Crowley (20-0, 9 KOs) came out quick and utilized a game plan to force the normally Abdukakhorov (18-1, 10 KOs) to fight on the back foot, something he really struggled with over the course of this fight.
Crowley would start fast and run into a quick hiccup in the second round when his sheer aggression left him vulnerable to a counter from Abdukakhorov that put him down, but other than that the story of the fight was Crowley throwing many, many more punches than Abdukakhorov and forcing a pace that Abdukakhorov just couldn’t keep up with. In the later rounds it was clear that Abdukakhorov was running on fumes, and to Crowley’s credit he never let his foot off the gas until the final bell. At the finish the three official judges turned in official scores of 95-94, 97-92, 98-91 in favor of Crowley. BLH also scored the fight for Crowley, 97-92.
Brandun Lee KO-7 Juan Heraldez (2:11)
In the Showtime opener junior welterweight prospect Brandun Lee (24-0, 22 KOs) continued his knockout streak, stopping Juan Heraldez (16-2-1, 10 KOs) in seven round after landing a huge right hand that put would put things away for good. Lee began the fight aggressively as usual, mixing up jabs to the head and body along with ambushes of combinations that began to make more and more contact as the fight wore on.
In the seventh round Lee continued with his steady work as Heraldez waned, and jumped on him with a left hook-right hand combination, with the right hand landing clean and putting Heraldez down. It would appear that the blow from Lee did some real damage to the nose of Heraldez, who held it and made no effort to beat the count.
In the post-fight interview Lee said he expected to get Heraldez out of there sooner than he had, and that his father/trainer wasn’t too thrilled with his performance, calling his father a ‘perfectionist.’ Either way Lee says he’s ready to take the next step in his career, as he continues his undefeated run.