“I stuck to my game plan which means I
stuck to the jab,” said Khan, who called out the boxer who dethroned him, WBA
Super, WBC and Ring Magazine Super Lightweight World Champion Danny Garcia, after his victory on
Saturday. “Carlos took some good
shots and kept coming forward. That
is when I thought to myself I am going to have to stick to the game plan and not
get too aggressive.
"Virgil is a great trainer and I feel I
am getting better as a fighter. He
is teaching me boxing, speed, patience, picking the right shot and knowing when
to throw it.
“I am my biggest critic. After each fight I always think what did
I do and why did I make the mistakes I did. Danny Garcia caught me with a good shot,
but I will fight him anytime anywhere. I want to fight him again”
Molina had some success and landed some
good shots but was mostly confounded by Khan’s
performance.
“I don’t know what happened,” Molina
said. “I wanted to pull the
trigger, but I couldn’t get my hands to go. I had a lack of precision. He was fast in his jab, and I was
hesitant in trying to get in because he has a long reach.
“I didn’t do my job. I lost my undefeated
record.
“I felt like I connected two or three
times, but I wasn’t in the right distance to reconnect after I wobbled him. I am going to go back (to the drawing
board), work hard and get back in the ring.”
In co-featured
scheduled 10-round bouts on SHOWTIME, knockout artist and 2008 Olympic Bronze
Medalist Deontay “Bronze Bomber”
Wilder, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., improved to 26-0 with 26 knockouts with a
one-punch, third-round knockout over previously undefeated Kelvin Price (13-1, 6 KO’s), of Pensacola,
Fla., to capture the vacant WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight Championship
while junior middleweight Alfredo “Perro” Angulo (22-2, 18 KO’s), of Los
Angeles, won a 10-round decision in a slugfest over Jorge Silva (18-3-2, 14 KO’s), of Chula
Vista, Calif.
The 6-foot-7 Wilder
finished Price, who’s also 6-foot-7, with a long, picturesque right hand. Wilder
was even on two scorecards and ahead on the other when he landed the heavyweight
haymaker that halted matters in sudden and dramatic
fashion.
"Bomb squad baby. I practice patience in the ring because
I know my punch is going to come and my opponent is going to get hit.” Wilder
said. “It’s just a matter of time,
but when it comes, it’s going to work and tonight it
did.
“Everyone has their season and it might
not come when you expect it, but it does come. Tonight my season came for me. My experience has started to pay off and
I felt great in there tonight.
“I feel more polished now. We set a goal we wanted to reach and
tonight it seems like that goal is almost there.”
Price offered no excuses. “I felt like I was controlling the
action and just getting into my rhythm,” he said. “Then he hit me with a good shot. I could have continued, but I take my
hat off to Deontay. He’s very
strong and was the better man tonight.”
In a crowd-pleasing,
non-stop action brawl in which the sluggers took turns pummeling each other,
Angulo got the best of Silva often enough to win by the scores of 97-93 on all
three judges’ scorecards.
“I asked for a fighter that would make
me work because I wanted to see where I really was after taking a year off,”
Angulo said. “I think I am a lot
better than I was then. I threw a
lot of punches and he did too, but I had to take it slow because I felt a bit
sluggish in there. For some reason
I came in the ring tonight at 168, which I have never done before. I thought I could knock him out in the
7th or 8th round, but he went into survival
mode.
“I’m happy I got the work and it makes
me feel good that I have a better idea of where my career can
go.”
Said Silva, “That was a really tough
fight and I thought I was doing enough to win some of the rounds the judges gave
to him. It was a hard fight and I
had to fight every round.
“He was strong and hit me with some good
shots. I was expecting a tough
fight tonight and that is what the fight was. I’m disappointed I didn’t get the
win.”
In a great action fight
on SHOWTIME EXTREME that preceded the SHOWTIME telecast, undefeated welterweight Shawn “Showtime” Porter (20-0-1, 14
KO’s), of Cleveland, Ohio, and former World Champion Julio Diaz (40-7-1, 29 KO’s), of Indio,
Calif., battled to a crowd-pleasing 10-round draw. One judge had it for Porter, 96-94,
another judge scored it for Diaz, 96-94, and the third judge had it
95-95.
The event was presented
by Golden Boy Promotions and Khan Promotions and sponsored by Corona and AT&T.
The tripleheader will re-air the first
time this week as follows:
DAY
CHANNEL
Sunday, Dec. 16, 10 a.m. ET/PT SHOWTIME
Saturday’s fights
will be available ON DEMAND beginning Sunday, Dec.
16.
Brian Kenny served as host of SHOWTIME
CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING with Mauro Ranallo calling the blow-by-blow action,
Hall of Fame analyst Al Bernstein and current WBA Welterweight World
Champion Paulie Malignaggi serving as expert analysts
with Emmy Award winning sports reporter Jim Gray reporting from
ringside.
The executive producer of SHOWTIME
Sports is David Dinkins Jr. with Bob Dunphy directing.
In a battle of
unbeatens earlier in the day on CBS, Leo
Santa Cruz (23-0-1, 13 KO’s), of Los Angeles, retained his International
Boxing Federation (IBF) World Bantamweight Championship with a hard-fought,
entertaining 12-round unanimous decision win over previously unbeaten Alberto Guevara (16-1, 6 KO’s) of San
Diego, Calif.