NEW YORK -- Unified junior lightweight champion Alycia Baumgardner reached out to embrace Bo Mi Re Shin as the final seconds evaporated in their unified junior lightweight title fight early Saturday morning.
It had been a grueling fight but also one that, save for a couple of rounds, Baumgardner largely controlled, beating Shin by unanimous decision to defend her WBA, WBO and IBF titles. The judges scored the bout 98-92, 98-92 and 99-91.
"All I knew was, I had to be consistent and use my jab to set things up," Baumgardner said in the ring after the fight. "It was up to me to set the pace and set my shot."
Baumgardner's title defense followed a scary situation in the co-main event, where unified super middleweight champion Shadasia Green was taken out of the ring on a stretcher following her upset knockout loss to Lani Daniels.
Mike Leanardi, Most Valuable Promotions' head of boxing, said Green was taken to a local hospital and was awake and talking.
The main event saw Baumgardner fighting three-minute rounds for the second time in her career.
In the days leading up to the fight, Baumgardner said she learned about taking her time and pacing from her first venture into three-minute rounds last year, when she defeated Leila Boudoin. That bout showed Baumgardner that she can fight longer rounds successfully.
"Now I want to bring in the other parts of me that I know I can bring out," she said before her fight against Shin. "And that's just the meaner side, the more aggressive side, the hungrier side, the go-get-it side. And that's what I'm aiming for Friday night."
Baumgardner's energy grew before the fight even began, with rapper Lil' Kim accompanying her to the ring with her song "The Jump Off."
After spending the first minute gauging Shin, Baumgardner (18-1, 7 KOs, 1 NC) settled into the fight well, attacking with clean jabs to create distance in the first round and then alternating between going to the body and then to the head in the second.
She landed multiple clean uppercuts to Shin's head in the fourth round, bringing the crowd to its feet with what initially appeared to be a knockdown before referee Sparkle Lee waved it off.
Shin's best round came in the sixth, when she landed a clean jab and later a clean cross and uppercut to Baumgardner's head, startling her. Shin (19-4-3, 10 KO) proceeded to walk Baumgardner down and put pressure on her for part of the seventh round, including a flurry of punches as the round came to a close.
Baumgardner, ESPN's No. 7 pound-for-pound fighter, settled down again in the eighth and withstood aggressive attacks from Shin in the final round. After the fight, Baumgardner called out unified junior welterweight champion Katie Taylor.
Taylor, currently ESPN's No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter, has said she wants one more fight before retiring.
In the co-main event, Daniels (12-4-2, 2 KOs) captured the IBF and WBO super middleweight titles with her ninth-round TKO of Green (16-3, 11 KOs).
The stoppage came after Daniels landed a slew of right hands to Green's head, leading the referee to halt the fight 32 seconds into the round after Green did not throw a punch.
Green was initially standing after the loss before she was placed on a stool. She was then quickly placed on a stretcher and taken out of the ring with MVP CEO Nakisa Bidarian following behind. Bidarian accompanied Green to the hospital.
Daniels also was taken to a local hospital for precautionary reasons, according to Leanardi.
Comments
Add a comment