Highlights and results: Cordova upsets Acosta by decision

Angelino Cordova got a debatable but big upset win over Angel Acosta on Thursday night.

Angelino Cordova got the upset win tonight over Angel Acosta, securing victory over 10 rounds in Indio, Calif., in a Golden Boy Fight Night main event.

The scores were debatable, but not what you’d really call a robbery. The three judges had it 95-94, 95-94, and 96-93 in his favor, and that came with a point deduction against Cordova in round four, so he won six, six, and seven rounds for the judges.

On our unofficial card, we had Acosta taking the last three rounds to secure a 96-93 card, but our unofficial card officially doesn’t count.

For Venezuela’s Cordova (18-0-1, 12 KO), it’s easily his biggest win, and gives him two straight solid wins on U.S. soil, after he beat Axel Aragon Vega in Florida last June. That fight was at 108 lbs, but this was at 112, and he sounds like he’s staying at flyweight, as he called out WBC titleholder Julio Cesar Martinez and Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, who faces Cristian Gonzalez for the vacant WBO title on Saturday in Texas.

This fight was for a minor WBO belt, for what it’s worth.

Acosta (23-4, 22 KO) started pretty well in the opening three rounds, but seemed off after the fourth, and that may be owed to a rabbit punch from Cordova, for which referee Ray Corona docked the point in round four. Cordova did foul a fair bit — some rabbit punches, some holding — but Acosta wasn’t fighting fully clean, either.

Acosta was clearly the harder puncher in there, but Cordova was able to frustrate the Puerto Rican southpaw slugger, make him miss, and he threw a lot more punches, which may have been the biggest thing that swung it for the ringside judges.

CompuBox saw Cordova land 184 of 704 (26%) of his total punches, to 158 of 481 (33%) for Acosta. Acosta did land 149 of 390 (38%) power shots compared to 140 of 485 (29%) from Cordova.

It was a debatable and interesting fight, not the easiest to score, with some rounds that could have swung either way. And while Cordova will surely want to move on to an even bigger fight, as he’s 27 and hasn’t been home to Venezuela in two years while chasing his boxing dream, Acosta’s team may try to push for a rematch, and that may also wind up the biggest fight Cordova can get.

Undercard results and highlights

• Jorge Chavez KO-5 Alberto Nieves: A fun fight, Nieves (4-3-1, 2 KO) had only fought once since 2019, and that was a bit over a year ago, but he was tough here, and gave Chavez (6-0, 5 KO) some solid rounds. Then, Chavez landed a brutal body shot, Nieves got up inhaling hard, trying to shake it off, and Chavez went right back to the same spot to finish him off.

• Grant Flores KO-1 Terrance Jarmon: Great to see #teen Grant Flores for 51 seconds. Jarmon (3-4, 1 KO) felt the power, went down, clearly didn’t really want to get up, tried to stand at, like, somewhere between 9.89 and 10.14 on the referee’s 10-count, and then was, like, “Aw, man, come on,” but it was probably the right call by the ref.

• Daniel Garcia TKO-2 Aldimar Silva: Garcia goes to 5-0 (4 KO) with a body shot stoppage. It was stopped after a count of one, but Silva probably wasn’t getting up, and he falls under .500 at 22-23 (14 KO), so he might need to pop back home to Brazil, the only place where he can win fights. Fascinated to see which weathered middle aged man Garcia beats up next after Jonathan Perez and now Silva. Garcia was just pumping that jab here, throwing 77 in five minutes and 14 seconds total.

• Leo Sanchez TKO-2 Mychaquell Shields: Easy win for 20-year-old junior lightweight prospect Sanchez, who goes to 4-0 (3 KO). He turned pro last July and had two fights with Thompson Boxing, then was in Panama for a fight in January. This was his Golden Boy debut and Beto Duran said on the stream that he was working with Miguel Cotto’s company, too. The most interesting thing about this fight, really, was that Shields (0-2) had a point docked in round two for holding, really an aggressive calling of the situation by referee Ray Armendariz, but hey, everyone recently got very upset about holding in a bigger fight, and boxing’s response to these things is usually someone going overboard the opposite direction, and that will last roughly two weeks before things return to normal.

You can watch the full show here: