Top Rank Boxing held a tripleheader on ESPN at the Grand Casino in Hinckley, Minnesota which headlined with Rob Brant defending his WBA middleweight title against undefeated Khasan Baysangurov.
The card however opened with a thrilling bantamweight fight between Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer Jr. taking on Giovanni “Little Giant” Escaner.
Both combatants started out firing with Escaner scoring an early knockdown at the bell to close out the 3rd round. Greer however, came back with a fury and took control for the rest of the fight. He started the 4th with an onslaught of combinations attacking the body of Escaner. This led to Escaner going down to a body shot at 2:33 in the 8th round. With this win, Greer moves to 20-1-1 and retains his WBC Continental Americas Bantamweight title.
The co-headliner featured a women’s contest as heralded 2016 Olympian Mikaela Mayer took on Yareli Larios in an 8 round match that showed early on that Mayer had a huge size advantage over Larios. Mayer took advantage by being more aggressive than Larios landing 155 punches to only 81 for Larios throughout the bout. The fight went the distance and Mayer had won by unanimous decision to improve her record to 10-0.
The night closed with the Rob Brant against undefeated Khasan Baysangurov for the WBA middleweight title. The volume throwing Brant was on the attack early, keeping Baysangurov on the defensive and unable to generate any offense. Baysangurov as a body counter-puncher wasn’t able to get set and was knocked down early in the 2nd round.
The onslaught from Brant continued but Baysangurov had a better showing and was able to stand his ground in the 3rd round. That would be short-lived however as Brant was able to keep his distance and launched a flurry of combinations during the middle rounds, even giving a bloody nose to Baysangurov. Despite a busted nose, Baysangurov hung in tough but Rob Brant was just too much for him. Brant closed out the night with a knockdown and a ref stoppage with 1:42 in the 11th round to retain the WBA middleweight title.
With that win, Rob Brant improves his record to 25-1 in what was an impressive homecoming fight as part of Bob Arum’s (photo above) Top Rank Boxing series..
