Highlights and results: Salt Papi loses to Anthony Taylor, more from Misfits undercard

Anthony Taylor beat Salt Papi by decision at today’s Misfits Boxing show, plus more from the undercard.

Fan favorite Salt Papi took his first loss in “crossover boxing,” dropping a clear decision over three rounds against Anthony Taylor.

Taylor won the fight on scores of 29-28, 30-27, and 30-27, and I have a hard time figuring out what round Ian John Lewis gave Papi, but it is Ian John Lewis.

Papi, who has picked up respect from the crossover world and the “real” boxing world, just got hit too many times, too cleanly by Taylor, a veteran of both MMA and boxing, never a terribly high level in either sport, but a seriously trained fighter who knows what he’s doing in the ring.

Taylor was able to catch Papi with right hands and then get clear of any of Papi’s ideas for a counter shot, and being totally honest, Papi just was not able to display what we’d seen previously against less-prepared opposition.

“I respect the judges’ decision, he was just the better man tonight and he deserved it, man,” Salt Papi said post-fight. “He’s a very tough fighter, that’s why a lot of people are scared of him. I didn’t get knocked out! I was happy fighting with him. I could have gone more rounds, but there’s no more rounds.”

“Give a shout-out to Salt Papi here,” Taylor said. “Everybody discredited me, talking about I was gonna fuckin’ gas out. Everybody second-guessed me. I had to prove you guys wrong, man.”

Asked what’s next for him, Taylor called for a fight with Slim Albaher.

“I’m just going to take on tougher challenges, bigger opponents,” Salt Papi said of his next fight, and both said they would be willing to do a rematch.

We’ll have more on the undercard shortly, including Deji vs Swarmz. Stay tuned!

More highlights and results

• Paigey Cakey UD-3 Tennessee Thresh: A really fun fight, give them their props, they fought to the best of their ability, brought heat for all three rounds, and were still going strong at the final bell. Paigey got scores of 29-28, 30-27, and 30-27. Not a big issue with the winner, but giving her all three rounds seems a little questionable to me, I thought Tennessee won the first and arguably could have been given the second, but it was a good time and it’s not like this affects their chances at million dollar world title fights, so whatever. I see worse scoring in real boxing every week.

• Viruzz KO-2 DK Money: Fun fight, both guys were throwing with intent. You could see DK Money waiting for counter shots in the first round, but once he let a lead left go he did rock Viruzz a bit. He got a knockdown in round two, but then Viruzz found him with a big shot and put him down and out, knocking his mouthpiece out on the shot.

• Little Bellsy UD-4 Lil Kymchii: Scores were 39-37 twice and 40-36, which were all fine. It wasn’t a good fight, even for level; obviously lacking technically and not even “fun” in an action way. Bellsy, who had a six-inch height advantage, was able to use her distance because Kymchii isn’t exactly an expert at cutting off the ring, so Bellsy when she wanted could just sort of wander around three yards away from Kymchii. Kymchii maybe landed one or two punches of any real note. Bellsy got some right hands in. There wasn’t a lot to it. Bellsy called out Astrid Wett after.

• Wings TKO-2 Boogie2988: This was actually the final fight of the prelims but had garnered a lot of attention because it was between two 400 lb non-athletes. Here’s how the fight went: Wings could move his arms and hands and throw punches and Boogie couldn’t. This put Boogie at an incredible disadvantage. Also they had to tape Boogie’s shorts up in round one. He received a standing eight count in round one and another in round two before the fight was stopped. They were fighting one-minute rounds.