“Toe to Toe Tuesdays” was back in action tonight, as we saw a welterweight matchup in the main event between 6’2 Jamal James (19-0, 9 KOs) and 2008 U.S Olympian Javier Molina (17-2, 8 KOs), who put on an entertaining fight that saw both men have their moments, but ended with Jamal James earning the clear unanimous decision victory by scores of 99-91, 98-92 and 97-93.
James established his jab immediately in this fight, keeping the smaller Molina from having any success inside on him and land something significant. The fight picked up in the middle rounds, as both men connected on big shots that landed flush. Neither man was ever hurt or knocked down, as both displayed tremendous chins and defensive abilities.
Molina may have landed the biggest punch of the fight in the fifth round, an overhand right that landed cleanly on James. Jamal never lost composure and never stopped using his jab, and landed a few sharp straight right hands of his own that sent Molina stumbling back from time to time.
The final rounds of the fight saw James in complete control, not leaving any doubt on who would get the decision on the cards. Molina wore down and could not keep up the punch output that James did.
Molina did suffer a cut on the side of his left eye from what seemed to be a straight right by James, but it was difficult to tell. James out landed Molina 178 to 68 and threw an absurd amount of jabs compared to Molina, and did well evading any potential home run punches that Molina was trying to land.
For James, he passed this test with flying colors. He showed that he is an elite prospect in the welterweight division who deserves to have his name mentioned along the likes of Errol Spence and Sammy Vasquez with a few more impressive performances as he had tonight.
For Molina, it’s back to square one, as he suffers his second loss and must now get back into the gym and work on his craft a bit before stepping back into the ring against a high-class opponent such as James. Here are the undercard results from tonight:
The first fight of the night was a light heavyweight bout, in which David Benavidez improved his record to (12-0, 11 KOs) by stopping Kevin Cobbs (10-2, 4 KOs) in the second round of their fight with a barrage of punches that all landed flesh on the outclassed Cobbs, causing the ref to step in and stop the fight.
Benavidez put his punches together quite nicely and went to the body more often than one would expect from a nineteen-year-old prospect. Benavidez stayed very balanced while on the attack as well and showed tremendous poise to slowly but surely break down Cobbs.
Cobbs did not appear to have a game plan on how to avoid Benavidez’s thudding punches, as he did not even attempt to move his head or slip any of the punches that were thrown at him. Overall, Benavidez looks very impressive and powerful for only being a teenager.
The second fight of the night saw a fun shootout in the middleweight division. Malcolm Mcallister (7-0, 7 KOs) continued his streak of knockouts to start his career by stopping tough journeyman Tyrone Selders (9-8-1, 6 KOs) with 20 seconds left in the third round.
Mcallister opened the fight immediately hurting Selders and knocking him down with a combination of punches, primarily the straight right hand. Selders survived the rest of the round while Malcolm suffered a cut over his left eye from an accidental head-butt, which seemed to slow Mcallister down.
The third round saw Selders having some success, landing big shots on the inside and was winning the round before he got stopped after taking several powerful shots to the head that snapped it back in the process.
The third fight of the night saw PBC regular Caleb “Sweet Hands” Plant (12-0, 9 KOs) in action in an eight round super middleweight bout that saw Plant stop Adasat Rodriguez (11-5-2, 7 KOs) in the sixth round. The fight ended on a stoppage that was probably too soon, but meaningless as Plant was dominating the fight by evading punches with ease.
Plant was almost dancing around the ring in the first few rounds, taunting his opponent as he has done in his past fights. The fight was extremely mundane throughout, and observers watching agreed for the most part that Plant should have gone for the knockout much sooner than he did.
Plant sent Rodriguez stumbling back into the corner with a series of strong left hooks. Plant only appeared to land one more punch after initially hurting Rodriguez, but the referee stepped in, realizing that he did not have much of a chance at winning the fight, and saved Rodriguez from unnecessary punishment.
However, Plant did display that he is a tremendous athlete who has excellent ring generalship and superb footwork, and many tab him as a future contender in his division.
