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By: William Holmes
HBO’s Boxing After Dark Series was broad cast from the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas and it was supposed to feature a featherweight title bout between Mikey Garcia and Juan Manuel Lopez. Garcia however came in overweight and the belt was no longer on the line. Many speculated it would affect his performance.
Photo: Chris Farina/Top Rank
The first bout of the night was between Alejandro Sanabria (34-1) and Terence Crawford (20-0) in the lightweight division. Crawford is considered by many to be one of the top lightweights in the world since Adrien Broner appears to be staying in either the welterweight or junior welterweight division.
Crawford started off slow while finding his range with his jab and trying to get a good feel of Sanabria. Crawford’s jab started to land with more regularity in the second round and he was able to give Sanabria different looks by switching back and forth from orthodox to a southpaw stance. Sanabria had a solid second round by showing good defense and catching Crawford with two lead left hooks early on in the second round.
Crawford’s superior boxing talents began to take over in the third round and a good right hook left uppercut combination briefly stunned Sanabria who was forced to hold on. Sanabria ended the third round with some decent hooks. In the fourth round Sanabria was caught with a right uppercut as he came on. Crawford began to really pick up his aggression in the fourth and fifth rounds.
The end came at 0:17 of the sixth round when Sanabria was knocked down by a lead left hook. He was able to beat the count but was still wobbly on his legs which forced the referee to stop the fight.
Mikey Garcia (31-0) and Juan Manuel Lopez (33-2) still fought despite the fact Garcia came in three pounds overweight the night before.
Lopez’s southpaw stance gave Garcia some problems early on the first round when he landed a couple lead left hands. Garcia however landed a lead left hook that continued to land the rest of the night. Lopez landed two good straight left hands at the end of the fight.
Garcia however began to take over in the second round especially with his jabs and lead left hooks. A stiff jab right cross combination knocked Lopez down in the second round.
Garcia continued to punish Lopez in the third round and increased his aggression in the fourth. Another jab cross combination rocked the head of Lopez and a straight right hand followed by a perfect left hook knocked Lopez down violently. He was able to get back to his feet but was out on his feet. The referee called it off at 1:35 of the fourth round.
Mikey Garcia remains undefeated but he’s no longer the featherweight champion.
