SAN ANTONIO, TX — There were no surprises on last night’s edition of Golden Boy Live, as prospects Fidel Maldanado, Errol Spence and Terrell Gausha had an easy time with their opponents. On paper, there was a remote possibility that late-replacement John Nater would provide decent competition for headliner Fidel Maldonado, but a few well-placed left hands to the body put an end to that speculation.
GAUSHA (8-0, 5 KOs) UD8 GEORGE SOSA (13-6, 13 KOs): Before the fight, Sosa boasted that he was “unimpressed” with Gausha. After watching him for eight rounds, I hold that opinion of his ability. Sosa plodded forward for most of the fight and was too slow to provide much resistance when the fight was at long-range. Gausha easily controlled him with jabs and peppered him with right hand counters. When Sosa tried to clumsily maul inside, Gausha treated him to uppercuts and thudding hooks to the body. Sosa was at one point close to going down, but wisely started to complain about loose wrapping on his glove (and spit out his mouthpiece for good measure).
As commentator Paulie Malignaggi pointed out, Gausha need to work on setting up his shots better. When he’s gunning for a KO, he begins to do Devon Alexander-type war yells and telegraph his haymakers. Sosa was able to brace for these shots despite not being able to get out the way.
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ERROL SPENCE (11-0, 9 KOs) TKO4 PETER OLUOCH (12-7, 6 KOs): Being that Oluoch, a career lightweight, has only fought three times since 2011 going into this fight (and losing two of them by decision), I didn’t expect him to have the ability to take Errol Spence a few rounds. He surprisingly did accomplish that — his awkwardness caused Spence to have to take a few rounds to get his timing down. Once that happened, Oluoch was rocked in short order by a straight left which brought him to his knees. After beating the count, Spence put him on his back with a short left hook inside, prompting the referee to save Oluoch from further punishment.
Spence is on record as stating he wants to fight seven times this year and has 2015 projected for his first title shot. With what he’s shown so far, that may get bumped up to the end of this year.
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FIDEL MALDONADO (18-2, 15 KOs) RTD4 JOHN NATER (13-5, 10 KOs): Once Maldonado stunned Nater with a straight left in the final minute of the second, it was just a matter of time. Maldonado used the punch as a counter shot to take away Nater’s jab and without that weapon, Nater started to get pounded inside with power shots. A left to the body froze him, and another over the top forced him to take a knee with less than a minute remaining in the third.
The fourth was even worse for Nater. Maldonado folded him again with a few left hooks to the body. For most of the round, Nater held to survive after every Maldonado power shot. With no chance of winning in sight, Nater’s corner pulled him and prevented what would have been another brutal beating in the fifth.
Maldonado is moving along nicely and should be looking at fighters like a Humberto Soto or Hank Lundy this year to continue his title shot climb.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 