Saturday night card featuring Neven Pajkic vs Raphael Butler was promoted by Wild Card Promotion.

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Andrew Fruman has the ringside report from Saturday night's show at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

It was looking bleak early on for Neven Pajkic, but the local heavyweight buckled down and managed to grit out a ten round unanimous decision over Raphael Butler.  The result was a win and the effort was certainly there, but it still wasn’t the most convincing of victories as Butler proved to be a far tougher foe than the undefeated Canadian was expecting.

The story of the first few rounds was Butler’s right uppercut, as the visiting man landed the punch with authority on several occasions – nearly scoring a knockdown in the opening minute of the bout, before drawing blood from Pajkic’s nose with one of several clean smashes in the second round. The blood would cause Pajkic trouble for the remainder of the contest, but the fighter confirmed afterward that there was fortunately no break.

Though not as spectacular as the crunching uppercuts, Butler also had his left hand working early and managed to catch Pajkic on the way in with several well timed jabs. It was the type of clever countering the Canadian champion hadn’t seen before and the well placed blows went a long way to stemming Pajkic’s aggression and earning Butler what appeared to be a commanding lead through four rounds.

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Joseph R. Holzer recaps last night's ShoBox card.

As Showtime commentator Steve Farhood continuously reminds viewers, the network's ShoBox series consistently showcases the rising talents of the sport. What sets this show apart from others is how the frequently unbeaten -- albeit untested -- prospects face challenges from other up-and-comers or the sometimes more dangerous veterans known as "gatekeepers."

This match-making has resulted in some damn fun fights over the years. The likelihood of an upset is exponentially greater on ShoBox than other cards, as is the competitive factor.

Fans would believe the fighters on Friday's show -- with a combined record of 64-2-3 with 41 knockouts -- would offer some high drama. Instead, they got a couple one-sided affairs. One by brute force. The other by flawless execution.

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Juan Manuel Marquez retained his lightweight crown at the Mandalay Bay last night with an impressive unanimous decision victory over Juan Diaz.  The win made it 2 for 2 over Diaz for the masterful Mexican, who was in control from start to finish.  Though he didn't flatten Diaz, the win was certainly more one-sided than the first meeting as the Houston fighter never approached the same kind of success he had over the first six rounds last year.

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Timothy Bradley / Photo © Justin McKie

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Michael Nelson assesses Timothy Bradley's welterweight debut.

Before Timothy Bradley's bout with Carlos Abregu Saturday night, Lou Dibella said that the winner of the fight is a potential opponent for Andre Berto.

A Berto-Bradley matchup sounds excellent on paper. But the more fights removed from Jr. Welterweight Bradley is, the less comfortable he's going to be making the 140 pound weight limit should he decide to move back down and handle unfinished business. And I think most of us want to see the Palm Springs phenom at his best against the likes of Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana, and Amir Khan.

That's the problem with prematurely jumping weight. Shane Mosley, for example, made the right business decision leaving his throne at Lightweight to chase Oscar De La Hoya up at Welterweight (and then Jr. Middleweight). But it cost boxing fans a number of dynamic matchups at weights where Mosley would have been at his most devastating.

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Ishe Smith (left) and Fernando Guerrero battling it out / photo © Cheryl Nemazie - cherylnemazie.com

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Joseph R. Holzer recaps this past Friday night's Shobox and FNF cards.

Who needs to shell out $54.95 when ESPN and Showtime are giving good fights away for cheap?

On Friday, while the boxing world awaited the late-night Bob Arum conference call regarding the "deadline" Top Rank imposed on Floyd Mayweather Jr. to approve a potential bout against Manny Pacquiao (spoiler alert: Money May decided to remain mum), Friday Night Fights and ShoBox showcased some old faces and some new ones in a few entertaining scraps.

Zab Judah returned to the ring after an eight-month layoff to score a third-round knockout of Jose Armando Santa Cruz in ESPN's main event. In his first bout at junior welterweight since 2003, Judah (39-6, 27 KOs) proved he still has some gas in his tank at 32. The speedy southpaw landed a highlight-reel left uppercut that floored Santa Cruz in the third round. Santa Cruz beat the count, but was on wobbly legs when Judah unleashed an assault that had Santa Cruz on the ropes and referee Benjy Estevez stepping in at 2:33.

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Juan Manuel Lopez / Photo © Marty Rosengarten / Ringsidephotos.com

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Michael Nelson takes a look at the next challenge facing Juan Manuel Lopez.

Adding Bernarbe Concepcion to his collection of early round knockout victims, Juan Manuel Lopez properly set the table for his showdown with Rafael Marquez.

Marquez will be a fairly large underdog.

There was some drama in Juanma's 2nd round destruction of Bernarbe when he got caught with a left hook that deposited him on the seat of his pants. But Lopez otherwise overpowered Concepcion and walked through him. His right hook - one of the most dangerous weapons in the sport - landed with frightening accuracy. And while his left hand was often just used as a decoy in previous fights, it's effect was devastating against the overmatched Filipino.

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Andrew Fruman was ringside for this past Saturday night's show at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, Ontario.

In a rough give and take battle that threatened to boil over at times, Tebor Brosch won an abbreviated split decision over Justin Fountain at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga. The final tallies were 68-66 and 68-65 for Brosch with the dissenting card favouring Fountain by a 67-66 score.

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Andrew Fruman has the ringside report from Wednesday night's Rumble at Rama XII.  The show featured the Canadian heavyweight title rematch between Neven Pajkic and Greg Kielsa, along with a super-bantamweight clash between Ana Julaton and Maria Villalobos.

Neven Pajkic (228) made it two in a row over Greg Kielsa (228), pounding out a unanimous decision in the first defense of his Canadian heavyweight title. The champion’s work rate was the difference, especially down the stretch as he let his hands go far more frequently than the economical former title-holder.

Though he had the better of the action through the opening few rounds, Pajkic didn’t fully get going until the fifth session, a round in which he backed up and nailed Kielsa repeatedly with crunching right hands, including a couple really nice digs to the southpaw’s mid-section.

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