The World This Week by Eric Armit Aug 14th 2008

Eric Armit sums up the (non-Olympic) international action of interest. August 8 Chicago USA Floridian Tavoris Cloud crashed the world light-heavyweight rankings with an impressive tenth round stoppage of former WBO champion Julio Cesar Gonzalez. The unbeaten Cloud started fast, had Gonzalez badly hurt in the fifth and a battery of unanswered punches convinced the referee to halt the contest in the tenth. Gonzalez, twice a loser to Clinton Woods in title fights, had not been down, but was well beaten at the finish and this is the first time he has been stopped. The 26-year-old Cloud now has 19 wins, 18 inside the distance. The 32-year-old Gonzalez, suffering his third loss in a row, drops to 41-6. Toa Baja, Puerto Rico Light-welterweight prospect Alex “Pollo” De Jesus moved to 18 wins as he had just too much power and skill for Mexican Adrian Navarette and halted him in the twelfth round to retain his WBO Latino title. The 25-year-old southpaw , who lost to Sam Rukundo in the 2004 Olympics, gave the gutsy Navarette (now 17-6-1) a steady beating but could not put him down or out. In the joint main event perennial contender Jose “Carita” Lopez floored Mexican veteran Oscar Andrade three times and Oscar stayed in his corner at the end of the seventh round. Lopez has had four unsuccessful shots at the WBO flyweight title, but has now moved up to super-flyweight. He has a 37-7-2 record and is unbeaten in his last 14, but at 36 time is running out for him. Sacramento, USA Cosme Rivera took an easy night as he halted Bobby Joe Valdez in three rounds. A loser to Zab Judah for the WBC,WBA and IBF welterweight titles in 2005, Cosme has slipped out of the picture after losses to Joel Julio and Andre Berto (although he did have the now WBC champion on the floor in their fight). Valdez was down in the second and had nothing left in the third. Cosme, now 32, is 32-11-2. Texan Valdez was out of his depth and falls to 9-5-2. The show was promoted by hometown hero Tony Lopez who was twice IBF super-featherweight champion and also WBA lightweight champion. Worcester, USA Another former two-weight champion was in action and in front of his home town fans Jose Antonio Rivera took an eight round points verdict over poor Clarence Taylor. Former WBA welterweight and light-middleweight champion Rivera had no trouble, winning clearly on all three cards in his first fight since being stopped by Daniel Santos in an WBA eliminator in October. “El Gallo” has a 39-6-1 record but has dropped out of the picture. Taylor falls to 13-17-2.

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