Highlights and results: Bazinyan beats Fox, Gollaz Valenzuela smashes Ulysse

Erik Bazinyan and Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela picked up wins on tonight’s card from Montreal.

Erik Bazinyan stayed undefeated tonight in Montreal, winning a majority decision over Alantez Fox that had some questionable scoring, but not entirely in the way you might expect.

Judges had it 95-95 on one card, and then 98-92 on the other two, the latter both going to Bazinyan, of course. One could argue none of these were very good cards, that the even tally gave Fox too much credit and that the other two gave Bazinyan too much credit. The right guy did win and all that, but it seemed a relatively easy fight to score all in all.

Bad Left Hook had the fight 97-93 for Bazinyan, nicking a swing round in the fourth his way. French-Canadian TV had it 96-94, which the ESPN+ broadcast seemed to agree with, which nicks that same round toward Fox instead.

Fox (28-4-1, 13 KO) seemed to hit the wall in round seven, after a very good sixth round that sort of pushed back against some momentum Bazinyan (29-0, 21 KO) was starting to build. It probably didn’t help the 6’4” Fox at all that he was fighting in a 16x16 ring at the Montreal Casino, but he also wasn’t complaining and was totally congratulatory toward Bazinyan after the fight was over, even before the scores were read, so if he’s not going to dwell on that, why would I?

He also had his own moments, particularly in the first half of the fight, and really just got beaten over the 10-round distance. Bazinyan had more left down the stretch and won the fight.

It’s a solid win for the 27-year-old Armenian-Canadian, who does hold a couple of minor trinkets (NABF and NABA) and has solid sanctioning body rankings across the 168 lb division. He’ll move on to his next one, while Fox has to figure out where to go from here, following a second straight loss and a 2-3 stretch in his last five fights.

Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela TKO-1 Yves Ulysse Jr

This one figured to be the night’s first solid matchup, but it was not. Gollaz Valenzuela absolutely demolished Ulysse with a right hand uppercut inside of the first minute, and that was it. Ulysse did get to his feet, but was clearly in absolutely no position to continue.

Gollaz Valenzuela (26-3-1, 16 KO) has flashed early power in fights before, but this was not expected. Ulysse (22-3, 12 KO) has been a solid pro, never quite got over the hump or anything, but he’d also never been stopped. He got wrecked here, and at 34, you have to wonder at least a bit if this was it for him, or at least if this was it in fights even at this level. (But potentially, he could be “rehabbed” with a few easy wins and then chucked back in, you never know, but it’s boxing.)

Big win for the 28-year-old Gollaz Valenzuela, who has proven tough in a win over Robbie Davies Jr and a close loss to Montana Love, and he’ll buy himself more chances with this performance for sure.

Undercard results and highlights

• Alexandre Gaumont TKO-1 Carlos Gallego: Gaumont is now 7-0 (5 KO). He’s a 27-year-old middleweight from Quebec. He got Gallego (8-5, 6 KO) with a good shot on the temple and dropped him, and Gallego just couldn’t recover.
• Christopher Guerrero TKO-3 Edwin Villareal: Easy win for Guerrero (6-0, 2 KO), whose last two wins have been by stoppage. He was born in Mexico but lives in Montreal and reps as Canadian, so don’t worry, up to this point the Canadians on the show were all still unbeaten in their mismatches.
• Avery Martin-Duval TKO-3 Eduardo Mota: Martin-Duval (9-0-1, 5 KO) is a 21-year-old prospect somewhere between featherweight and lightweight — I know there’s an actual division between those, but it could be any of the three! He walked Mota (7-2-1, 2 KO) onto a shot and dropped him in the third. Mota’s legs were gone, referee stopped it as he should have. Mota did not look as good as even his limited record might suggest.
• Wilkens Mathieu TKO-1 Zsolt Birkas: A pro debut for 18-year-old Mathieu, who weighed in at 164 lbs for this fight and that indicates he’ll probably try to get to middleweight when he starts getting serious, unless he’s outgrown even the chance of making 160, so it could be super middleweight. He wanted to turn pro at 16 in Mexico, but was talked into staying as an amateur for a couple more years, and now here he is. He looked good, scored a couple knockdowns, the fight was stopped as it should have been. Birkas is now 0-1-1.