In the main event live on ESPN, former unified lightweight world champion, George Kambosos became the IBF lightweight number-one contender by winning an eliminator fight via a hotly debated majority decision win over Maxi Hughes.
Kambosos failed to impress in this contest as the ESPN telecast had Hughes winning by a wide margin and Hughes quite simply put on a masterful boxing performance. Hughes exploited Kambosos' flaws when fighting a textbook boxer and even appeared to stun him early in the fight with a straight left hand.
The sixth round saw the southpaw and orthodox styles clash creating a clash of heads that opened up a cut on Maxi Hughes' forehead.
Kambosos started to get more aggressive later in the contest, but also it was hard to tell if it was effective. The thing working against Hughes was his shot were not all that powerful, and that might have been why he didn't get more credit on the scorecards.
The final four rounds appeared to be a stalemate with Hughes seemingly getting the better of very close exchanges. Yet, it was Kambosos who won by the scores of 114-114, 117-111, and 115-113.
With this win, Kambosos is now the number-one contender for the IBF lightweight world title, and that would put him in line to face Gustavo Lemos if Haney does in fact vacate his undisputed lightweight world titles.
Keyshawn Davis, a 24-year-old lightweight boxer from Norfolk, Virginia, defeated Francesco Patera, from Belgium, in the co-main event of this card.
The telecast started with Davis being greeted during his entrance as he called for a world title shot after this fight, but the performance was rather uneventful. Davis showed the talent of a world-class fighter but oftentimes was inactive for a fighter competing at the highest level of the sport. In the eighth round, Davis dropped Patera with a well-timed pull-counter straight right hand that showed his potential greatness. Yet, Patera showed his toughness in not getting stopped.
Davis appeared to get some criticism as he has been vocal on social media calling for big fights and even though he fought a good world-caliber opponent he might not have lived up to the standard he set for himself. That being said, it was hard to find a round that Davis didn't dominate yet his punch volume was lower than expected.
The judges scored the bout 100-89 on two cards and 99-90 on the other.
