O’Shaquie Foster kept hold of his WBC super featherweight title, but it wasn’t pretty as he took a split decision win against Abraham Nova at Madison Square Garden, New York on Friday.
Foster (22-2, 12 KOs) impressively won the title a year earlier, widely outscoring Rey Vargas in San Antonio, but in his most recent outing, the Texan was well behind on two scorecards in Mexico before pulling out a last round stoppage win against Eduardo Hernandez. Nova (23-2, 16 KOs) hadn’t previously operated at world level, and was on a two-fight winning streak up at super featherweight, after being knocked out in five in his sole loss to Robeisy Ramirez in June 2022 at featherweight.
The early rounds of this one were hard to score, but the champion made a conservative start, hardly landing in the first couple of frames, before switching to southpaw with some success in the third.
Nova got the better of the fourth with some looping right hands catching the eye, but the action was sparse as the two failed to ignite, and Foster damaged his bicep in the fifth, hampering him for a spell.
The challenger was getting the better of what action there was, and he bloodied Foster’s mouth in the eighth, but the 30-year-old responded with some right hands in the ninth that troubled Nova.
The Puerto Rican seemed to tire as the fight went into the later rounds, and that appeared to give Foster confidence, and he was awarded a knockdown In the final session, with a short hook landing, however the bout went to the scorecards.
In the end, tallies of 116-111 and 115-112 saw Foster retain his gold, with a third judge opting for a 114-113 verdict in Nova’s favour.
“[Emanuel] Navarrete busy,” Foster told ESPN post-fight.
“I’ll take [WBA champion] Lamont [Roach] or the winner of Oscar [Valdez] and Liam Wilson, whichever one.”
Cortes halts Chavalier
On the undercard, Andres Cortes took the WBO Intercontinental super featherweight title, as he overwhelmed Bryan Chevalier (20-2-1, 16 KOs) in a fourth round win.
Cortes (21-0, 12 KOs) bullied Chevalier around the ring, and the towel eventually came in from Chevalier’s corner.
Carrington ices Torres
Bruce Carrington (11-0, 7 KOs) claimed the vacant IBF, WBO Intercontinental and NABF featherweight titles, with a stunning fourth round knockout of Bernard Angelo Torres.
Torres (18-2, 8 KOs) was dropped by a massive right hand, with the fight immediately waved off.
THE BROWNSVILLE BULLY DOES IT AGAIN 🤯@B_Carrington1 | #FosterNova pic.twitter.com/OcgAHIweT4
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) February 17, 2024
Remaining Undercard
Delante Johnson (12-0, 6 KOs) is a name to watch out for, and the super lightweight needed less than a round to deal with Paolo Cesar Galdino (13-8-2, 9 KOs).
Arnold Gonzalez (14-0, 6 KOs) stayed unbeaten, with the super welterweight taking a six round decision win against Charles Stanford (7-5, 4 KOs).
Euri Cedeno (8-0-1, 7 KOs) also remained unblemished, stopping Antonio Todd (16-10, 9 KOs) in the sixth of a scheduled eight rounder at middleweight.
Moses Johnson got KO’d but the ref (Shada Murdaugh) thought it was an accidental hit to the back of the head by Guido Vianello, so the fight continued & Johnson got dropped FOUR more times before the ref finally stopped it. 😬😬
Johnson was out of it long before the stoppage. pic.twitter.com/SFk3TZ7aET
— ★★★★★ (@TSV__1) February 17, 2024
In a bizarre contest at heavyweight, Guido Vianello seemed to knock Moses Johnson (11-2-2, 8 KOs) out in the first round of their meeting, but the referee ruled it to be a shot behind the head.
Vianello (12-1-1, 10 KOs) would score four more knockdowns in the round before the fight was mercifully stopped.
Ofacio Falcon (11-0, 6 KOs) won all six rounds of his super featherweight bout with Edward Ceballos (11-5-1, 6 KOs), and Isaah Flaherty (7-0, 3 KOs) did the same at middleweight against Julien Baptiste (6-4, 3 KOs).
