In a 12-round lightweight title qualification challenge that ended in Las Vegas, USA, Dominican fighter Mitchell Rivera, known as "Ali II", lost miserably against American Frank Martin, losing by a large margin, and tasted defeat for the first time in his career.
In this fight, both fighters are undefeated, Rivera has a record of 24 wins and 14 knockouts, Martin has a record of 16 victories and 12 knockouts, and it is also an encounter between two rookies in their division.
Rivera is also known as "Ali II" because of his resemblance to legendary heavyweight champion Mohammed Ali, and he himself is well aware of the importance of this title to him, so he imitates Ali everywhere, such as wearing the same hairstyle as Ali, wearing the same sports shorts as Ali, and even imitating Ali in the tone of his words.
Although Rivera and Martin have maintained a complete victory, the outside world is still slightly optimistic about Rivera, in addition to his famous "Ali II", that is, Rivera ranks higher than Martin in major boxing organizations, and is physically better than his opponents, but it turns out that Rivera is overrated, on the contrary, Martin is underestimated.
The gap was opened shortly after the bout, with Rivera, who had the advantage of reach, trying to control the tempo from mid to long-range, but Martin was very smart and took full advantage of his technique and speed, constantly pressuring his opponent and easily winning the first few rounds.
In the confrontation, Rivera's style is somewhat monolithic, except for the front hand jab + back hand straight punch, there are almost no other punches, and he is not a heavy gunner, so it is difficult to pose a threat to Martin. Martin played more and more smoothly after figuring out the opponent's routine, and the left-handed man immediately counterattacked after defusing the opponent's attack, and Rivera was helpless about it.
Usually, Martin immediately counter-attacks after dodging Rivera's heavy punches, and Rivera is too poor in dealing with counterattacks, and after being injured and unable to react, Martin's new attack roars.
In the fifth round, Rivera stepped up his attack and tried to make a difference, but unfortunately the situation did not change in the slightest. In the 7th round, Martin's counter-attack was once again threatening, this time hitting his opponent in the jaw and knocking out Rivera, and the situation on the field was completely one-sided.
Since the beginning of the 8th round, Martin has almost reached the point of doing whatever he wants, as an amateur All-American Gold Pack Champion, his style is somewhat like "Sugar Cube" Sean Mosley, that is, he can suddenly start in a confrontation, directly implement a strong swing of the back hand, straight punch attacks, and Martin's punching accuracy is very high, if not for the limited strength, coupled with the lack of complete boldness, Rivera is very likely to be knocked down again.
In this competition, Martin's strategy is very simple, that is, with superb technology as the guide, frequent implementation of dodge + counterattack play, Rivera due to the comprehensive index is in the downside, can not effectively resist. Technical statistics show that both sides hit 174-67 in the entire match, and Rivera actually missed as many as 107 punches, which shows the gap between the two.
In the end, the three judges unanimously decided that Martin won with huge scores of 117-110, 118-109, 120-107, and some fans mocked Rivera: parallel goods have finally appeared!
After this battle, Rivera's record was rewritten to 24-1, 14 knockouts, Martin's record was rewritten to 17 wins, 12 knockouts, because this battle competed for IBF lightweight mandatory challenge qualification, after the victory, Martin will become the undisputed opponent of the undisputed overlord of his division, Devin Hani, it depends on when the two sides can reach an agreement? After the defeat, Rivera must recognize the situation, go home and sum up the lessons learned, and try to make a comeback, otherwise he will sooner or later become a sandbag under the fist of others.