Highlights and results: Jesus Ramos dominates Spencer, Colbert and Crowley win

Jesus Ramos dominated, Chris Colbert got a very debatable decision, and Cody Crowley won a hard-fought battle on the Benavidez-Plant undercard.

The Benavidez vs Plant undercard is in the books, with Jesus Ramos, Chris Colbert, and Cody Crowley winning their pay-per-view fights, some in dominant fashion, others more questionable.

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Here’s a recap of what we saw tonight from Las Vegas on Showtime pay-per-view.

Jesus Ramos TKO-7 Joey Spencer

Unfortunately for Spencer, this wound up the mismatch many feared it would be, as the 22-year-old from Michigan was dropped in the first round and, despite being very tough and very game, dominated until his corner rightly threw the towel in round seven.

Ramos (20-0, 16 KO) was too big, too skilled, too strong, and just too good for Spencer (16-1, 10 KO), whose steady diet of carefully-chosen opponents on PBC’s terrible FOX shows did him no favors in this fight, as he came up against a guy who was just too good and left Spencer looking helpless at times, despite the great effort he put in.

CompuBox saw Ramos landing 172 of 413 (42%) of his total punches and 147 of 317 (46%) power shots, a dominant display compared to Spencer landing 48 of 355 (14%) total punches and 47 of 242 (19%) power shots. Ramos landed 25 of 96 (26%) jabs, a strong connect rate, compared to Spencer going just 1 of 113 (1%). Ramos also landed 32 body shots to Spencer’s 13.

“I looked real good. I showed some angles. After the knockdown, I got carried away with my power a little bit, and it took some time for me to start working on what I practiced in the gym,” Ramos said.

Chris Colbert UD-10 Jose Valenzuela

This is going to be hotly debated. Colbert got three scores of 95-94 in his favor, overcoming an opening round knockdown to bounce back from his first career defeat about a year ago and get the win.

Unofficially, Bad Left Hook had this 95-94 Valenzuela on two separate cards. And lost in all this is going to be that it was a really good fight, a great clash of styles, and both guys had some great moments over the course of the fight.

Post-fight, Colbert (17-1, 6 KO) went over to share respect with Valenzuela (12-2, 8 KO), who has now lost two straight. An emotional Valenzuela just kept saying he won the fight, and ignored Colbert repeatedly offering to “run it back,” which he again said he would when speaking with Jim Gray.

Colbert also called Valenzuela a “sore loser,” among other things.

“He had his spurts. He caught me with shots, and I’d jab and jab and jab. He got that knockdown, but that don’t win a whole 10-round fight,” Colbert said.

“I landed the hard shots, I landed all the shots, I dropped him, I dominated,” Valenzuela said.

Truthfully, no, I don’t think Valenzuela dominated, and it would be hard to say that he did. But I do think he just edged this fight, and again, it was a good fight. I would not at all mind seeing a rematch between the two later this year.

Cody Crowley MD-12 Abel Ramos

A hard-nosed, hard-fought, extremely physical fight, fought pretty much exclusively in the “phone booth,” a term we probably need to replace since a large portion of our audience have no personal experience with phone booths.

Crowley (22-0, 9 KO) got the majority decision win on scores of 114-114, 115-113, 116-112. Bad Left Hook’s two unofficial cards were 115-113 and 116-112, both for Crowley. This was also a WBC eliminator, which means one of various things. Errol Spence Jr currently holds the title, there’s a mandatory defense order in for Spence to face Keith Thurman, and Crowley could maybe have to fight for an interim or something next. We’ll see, but he’s got a locked place in the room, at least.

Crowley and Ramos (27-6-2, 21 KO) both pretty much did as they said they would, with Crowley his normal volume-punching self, and Ramos meeting him pretty much dead even on that count, throwing 854 punches to Crowley’s 861 over the 12 rounds, averages of 71 and 72 per round, respectively.

Ramos hurt Crowley in the 11th and was initially ruled to have scored a knockdown moments later with Crowley’s glove appearing to touch the canvas, but the Nevada commission used their instant replay (or VAR, depending on how modern you are with this) and rightly corrected that call, because Crowley’s glove did not touch.

It’s a good win for Crowley, but he also did have some struggles with a guy who is now 1-3 in his last four fights and was coming off of a loss to Luke Santamaria. Styles make fights and all, but it’s doubtful anyone who already knew Crowley thinks more of him coming out of this than they did coming in, or that his stock really went up in the 147 lb division. Of course, anyone who knew him already thought he was a top 10 fighter in the division right now, so it’s not all gloom, and once again he was just all engine, he’s got a style and he fights the way he fights, and it’s been effective to date.