VERONA, N.Y. — Maurice Hooker had a herculean struggle to make 140 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in, so nobody was quite sure what he would have in the tank on Saturday night. It turned out to be more than enough.
Hooker easily outpointed Mikkel LesPierre to retain his junior welterweight world title for the second time in the co-feature of the Dmitry Bivol-Joe Smith Jr. light heavyweight world title fight at the Turning Stone Resort Casino.
The judges scored it 120-107, 119-108 and 118-109 for Hooker, who dropped LesPierre in the eighth round.
“I give myself a C-minus in my performance,” Hooker said. “I wasn’t good, but I had to push. Look, you live and you learn. If you judge me from this fight, you better not get in the ring thinking the same thing because I am coming for you.”
After the fight, he addressed England’s Jack Catterall (23-0, 12 KOs), his mandatory challenger, who was ringside on a scouting mission.
“Where’s Jack Catterall? He came all the way over here to watch me fight. Just wait, young grasshopper, you will get your turn,” he said to Catterall.
Hooker (26-0-3, 17 KOs), of Dallas, was making his second title defense since going on the road to Terry Flanagan’s hometown of Manchester, England, in June and winning a split decision against the former lightweight titlist to claim the vacant 140-pound belt.
Hooker, 29, appeared to comfortably make weight for his first defense, a seventh-round knockout of Alex Saucedo in November in Saucedo’s hometown of Oklahoma City, but he had massive trouble making weight for the fight with LesPierre.
A badly drained Hooker took virtually all of the allotted two hours and needed four tries to make weight after being half a pound over on the first try and then a quarter of a pound before barely making it.
By fight night he had blown up to 160 pounds and did not seem to show any negative impact from the rough weight cut. His arms were much longer than LesPierre’s and he outjabbed him constantly and mixed in straight right hands against an opponent who did not throw many punches.
“Making weight [with such difficulty] was my fault. I was in the room messing around. That was my fault,” Hooker said. “I’m learning as I go. I’m not done yet.”
Hooker had a big fifth round as he continually caught LesPeirre, forced him to hold and nearly dropped him in the final seconds. LesPierre (21-1-1, 10 KOs), 34, of Brooklyn, New York, who was taking on the first notable opponent of his career, suffered a cut over his right eye in the round.
Hooker, having no issues, showboated in the closing seconds of the eighth round by shaking his body and sticking his tongue out at LesPierre.
In the ninth round, Hooker pinned him along the ropes and dug a left hook to the body to knock him down. He barely beat the count but made it out of the one-sided round.
According to CompuBox, Hooker landed 240 of 928 punches (26 percent) and LesPierre connected with only 103 of 488 (21 percent).
Johnson crushes Monaghan
Light heavyweight Callum Johnson easily blew out Seanie Monaghan, dropping him twice in a one-sided, third-round destruction to bounce back from his only loss.
Johnson (18-1, 13 KOs), a former British and Commonwealth champion from England, came within a whisker of winning a 175-pound world title in his previous fight on Oct. 6 in Chicago, where he knocked down titlist Artur Beterbiev in the first round and had him in major trouble only to lose by fourth-round knockout in an all-action brawl.
But he dominated Monaghan (29-3, 17 KOs), of Long Beach, New York, who lost his second fight in a row, having also dropped a one-sided decision to former world title challenger Sullivan Barrera on Nov. 3.
“I thought it was a good performance,” Johnson said. “I can’t say it was perfect. I learned a lot from the Beterbiev fight. I would love to fight the winner of the main event, and I think these people would love to see me back in America. I needed the win to get back on track. But, mentally, I needed that loss more.
“I think that got me in the place that I learned what I need to do in camp now, the little things. Working on tactics and my diet and things like that. (Matchroom Boxing promoter) Eddie (Hearn) is here to make sure that I am getting the biggest fights so I can make money for my family.”
Johnson, 33, cut Monaghan over the left eye in the first round and had him in trouble. By the second round, Monaghan’s face was covered with blood and Johnson was all over him. He floored him with a heavy right hand and a left hook, and although Monaghan, 37, made it to his feet, he seemed out of it. But referee Charlie Fitch allowed it to continue and moments later Johnson flattened him again. Monaghan rose and the bell rang to end the round.
Johnson immediately went after him to begin the third round and pounded him with numerous punches until Fitch stepped in at 23 seconds.
“There isn’t a fighter that is out there in the light heavy division that is stronger than me,” Johnson said. “I have power to knock anyone out. I know I had a tough competitor ahead of me in Monaghan. I enjoyed myself out there tonight.”
Heavyweight Sergey Kuzmin (15-0, 11 KOs), of Russia, pounded out a majority decision against Joey Dawejko (19-7-4, 11 KOs), of Philadelphia. Two judges scored it 96-94 for Kuzmin and one had it 95-95.
It was a slow-paced fight, but the bigger Kuzmin, 31, whose biggest win was a knockout of David Price in September, controlled long stretches of the bout from the outside. By the sixth round, Dawejko’s right eye was swelling and Kuzmin continued to target it with his shots.
Dawejko, 28, lost his third fight in a row, having also dropped 10-round decisions to Andrey Fedosov and former title challenger Bryant Jennings.
Junior middleweight Israil Madrimov (2-0, 2 KO), a former amateur standout from Uzbekistan, who fights out of Indio, California, scored a brutal second-round knockout of Frank Rojas (24-3, 23 KOs), of Venezuela.
Madrimov, 24, a two-time Asian Games gold medalist, who turned pro in a scheduled 10-rounder in November, shoved Rojas to the mat and hit him while he was down, eliciting a strong warning from referee Benjy Esteves in the second round, but moments later he scored a hard knockdown.
Rojas, 31, beat the count, but moments later Rojas pummeled him in the follow-up attack, including a monster left hook that knocked him out cold. Esteves stopped the fight without a count at 1 minute, 56 seconds as Madrimov celebrated with a cartwheel and a backflip.
Madrimov calmed his celebration when it was apparent Rojas was in distress while receiving medical attention. He was down for several minutes before leaving the ring under his own power.
Highly touted amateur Otha Jones III (1-0) had a rough go in his pro debut but outpointed Giorgi Gelashvili (5-2, 3 KOs) by scores of 59-55, 58-55 and 58-55 in a lightweight bout. Jones, 19, of Toledo, Ohio, was 283-13 as an amateur, won numerous notable tournaments and was a sought-after prospect before signing with Matchroom Boxing. But it was a far tougher fight than an average pro debut.
Jones and his team insisted on a solid opponent and a six-rounder, instead of the usual four-rounder for a pro debut, and he took many punches in a tough fight with Gelashvili, who was boxing for the first time since November 2016. But Jones was faster and more skilled and tagged Gelashvili, 25, a native of the Republic of Georgia fighting out of Brooklyn, New York, with enough punches to mark up his face.
Jones scored a flash knockdown in the fourth round on a right hand. The knockdown, however, was aided by the fact that Jones was stepping on Gelashvili’s foot when he delivered the punch.
Middleweight “White Chocolate” Nikita Ababiy (3-0, 3 KOs), of Brooklyn, who turned pro in October, destroyed Cory Dulaney (5-9-3, 1 KO), of Whitehall, Ohio, in the first round. Ababiy, 20, hurt him with a nonstop body attack and scored two knockdowns, first with a left to the pit of the stomach and moments later with a straight left hand to the head. Dulaney, 29, barely beat the count but he was done, and referee Gary Rosado stopped it at the bell, ending the round.