Abraham, Marquez, Arreloa, Berto, Kessler and Kahn all Victorious!

Heavyweight Chris Arreloa

By: Christopher Roche

It is difficult when Showtime and HBO decide to go head to head, but all four fights ended well before midnight, here on the East Coast.

In the Showtime main event, Edison Miranda got drilled by Arthur Abraham. Miranda was dropped three times in round four, and the referee stopped the bout. The official time was 1:13.

In the co-feature, Giovanni Lorenzo suffered his first defeat, as a bloodied Raul Marquez squeaked by with a 114-113 (3x) decision. Lorenzo was penalized a point in the bout for unnecessary use of the Cranium. The fight was very spirited, and I look for both men to be factors in the middleweight division.

Over on HBO, untested and undefeated heavyweight Chazz Witherspoon could not ace his exam against Cris Arreloa. Arreloa dropped Witherspoon twice in the third round. Witherspoon actually did a face plant at the bell, and in one of those “only in boxing” moments, he was disqualified after rising to his feet. Although the bell sounded, the referee did not like the fact that Witherspoon’s corner entered the ring.

In the main event on HBO, Andre Berto had a seemingly easy time against Miguel Rodriguez. I am not sure what Rodriguez did to warrant a shot at the vacant WBC Title, since there are about twenty welterweights more worthy, but he gave a decent account of himself and landed a few hard right hands. Berto proved to be too much, however, and after two seventh round knockdowns, the bout was stopped.

As if all of this action was not enough, I heard that Mikel Kessler also won by TKO, and Amir Khan survived a scare. Maybe this boxing game has life after all!