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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Will the real Gary Russell Jr. please stand up?
Is the 26-year-old still the athletically gifted but technically outmatched wannabe he portrayed nine months ago in a not-nearly-so-close-as-it-was-scored majority decision loss to Vasyl Lomachenko?
Or is he now the multi-faceted assassin who took less than 10 in-ring minutes to detach veteran Jhonny Gonzalez from a tenuous connection to world-stage relevance on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The answer, as in many things, probably resides somewhere in the middle.
But regardless of where one thinks the Washington, D.C. native rightfully belongs in the suddenly reconfigured mix at 126 pounds, there seems little reason to doubt that the featherweight ranks are entering a top-end golden age they’ve not seen in recent multi-belt memory.
Russell’s four-round ascension made him the fourth 20-something to possess a recognized championship trinket in the weight class – 25-year-old Lusanda Komanisi is the IBO’s lesser-known title-holder – and the prospect of fellow youngsters Lomachenko (27, WBO), Nicholas Walters (29, WBA) and Evgeny Gradovich (28, IBF) dueling for premier jewelry is a tantalizing dream if not a reachable reality.
And it doesn’t hurt that the division’s most-decorated non-champion – Abner Mares – is only 29.
Russell, the former U.S. amateur kingpin, controlled the first two rounds against Gonzalez with his fast fists, but it was a thudding straight left followed by a sweeping right hook that sent his foe down in the third, and the wobbly Mexican never recovered – falling once more in the fourth before referee Tony Weeks stepped in to end matters just 37 seconds into the session. [Click Here To Read More]
Is the 26-year-old still the athletically gifted but technically outmatched wannabe he portrayed nine months ago in a not-nearly-so-close-as-it-was-scored majority decision loss to Vasyl Lomachenko?
Or is he now the multi-faceted assassin who took less than 10 in-ring minutes to detach veteran Jhonny Gonzalez from a tenuous connection to world-stage relevance on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The answer, as in many things, probably resides somewhere in the middle.
But regardless of where one thinks the Washington, D.C. native rightfully belongs in the suddenly reconfigured mix at 126 pounds, there seems little reason to doubt that the featherweight ranks are entering a top-end golden age they’ve not seen in recent multi-belt memory.
Russell’s four-round ascension made him the fourth 20-something to possess a recognized championship trinket in the weight class – 25-year-old Lusanda Komanisi is the IBO’s lesser-known title-holder – and the prospect of fellow youngsters Lomachenko (27, WBO), Nicholas Walters (29, WBA) and Evgeny Gradovich (28, IBF) dueling for premier jewelry is a tantalizing dream if not a reachable reality.
And it doesn’t hurt that the division’s most-decorated non-champion – Abner Mares – is only 29.
Russell, the former U.S. amateur kingpin, controlled the first two rounds against Gonzalez with his fast fists, but it was a thudding straight left followed by a sweeping right hook that sent his foe down in the third, and the wobbly Mexican never recovered – falling once more in the fourth before referee Tony Weeks stepped in to end matters just 37 seconds into the session. [Click Here To Read More]
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