Saturday night’s Top Rank on ESPN quadrupleheader produced an entertaining night of fights, with three bouts ending in knockouts, while Sergey Kovalev earned back the WBO light heavyweight title with a unanimous decision win in his rematch vs. Eleider Alvarez.
Unfortunately, the card took place in Texas, which inevitably meant we’d get bad judging, bad refereeing, or a combination of the two. The Top Rank show settled on bad and dangerous refereeing, and it became a point of discussion for ESPN’s commentary and studio team.
The ESPN broadcast opened up with Richard Commey (28-2, 25 KOs) winning the vacant IBF lightweight title with a second-round TKO of Isa Chaniev (13-2, 6 KOs), thus lining himself up for an April unification bout with Vasyl Lomachenko.