Alycia Baumgardner showed great poise and patience to destroy Leila Beaudoin in the co-feature bout of Netflix's Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua fight card in Miami.
Alycia Baumgardner showed great poise and patience to destroy Leila Beaudoin over 12 three-minute rounds on Friday in the co-feature bout of Netflix's Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua fight card in Miami.
It was a bout that saw unified super featherweight world champion Baumgardner follow in the footsteps of Amanda Serrano, her Most Valuable Promotions stablemate, as a trailblazer for the sport pushing forward with 36-minute fights — no different to male fighters. The WBC, through president Mauricio Sulaiman, opposes the advancement, favoring the traditional 10 two-minute rounds for women, instead, citing fighter safety. And so Baumgardner dropped her WBC championship for this fight.
But on Dec. 19 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Baumgardner (17-1, 7 KOs) showed she has championship endurance to go with all the technical assets we’ve seen from her through the years, beating Beaudoin (14-1, 2 KOs) in brutal fashion.
Keeping her guard high to her head early in the fight, Baumgardner boxed with flurries, and behind her jab. The result was early damage as Beaudoin, after only three rounds, had bruising already around her eyes.
With the benefit of three-minute rounds, Baumgardner had more time to work, and boxed patiently.
However, considering she flattered to deceive in her last MVP outing against Jennifer Miranda, she was under pressure to deliver — either a beatdown, a knockdown, or at the very least a moment — so MVP could heighten its promotion of an American seemingly destined for the top of the sport.
And it was not long before Baumgardner delivered all three as that moment, her knockdown, came in the seventh round.
A short right hand put Beaudoin on the canvas. She got to her feet, was saved pretty much by the bell, and returned to the corner. However, her body language on the stool was concerning. With bruising all over her face, and a coach pouring water over her head to cool her down, it looked like she might vomit.
For Baumgarnder, there was no issue adjusting to the increased fighting time, but Beaudoin visibly struggled.
To her credit, she hit Baumgardner with a three-shot combination in the eighth as Beaudoin tried to fight her way out of trouble, displaying her extraordinary heart, before brief moments of success late in the championship rounds.
But, ultimately, this was a clear, technical, and merciless Baumgardner victory, who deserved her lopsided unanimous decision win with scores of 117-110 (x2) and 118-109.
“I gave myself an A-plus just for showing up,” Baumgardner told Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani on the Netflix broadcast, after advancing her pro record to 17-1-0 (7 KOs).
She later added that she was not disappointed to go the distance because “it just shows the level of my skill. I can box,” Baumgardner said. “I can punch.”
As for what’s next, well, according to ‘The Bomb’ “there are a lot of girls lined up.”
Whether one of those girls could be Caroline Dubois, who also excelled on the MVP card, remains to be seen.
Category: General Sports
