Antoine Douglas Makes Easy Work of Sherrington On ShoBox

Antoine Douglas seals the deal with a 4th round TKO to stay undefeated in his fifth #ShoBox appearance. #Boxing https://t.co/izK2dbxga4

— SHOWTIME SPORTS (@SHOsports) November 7, 2015

It was graduation time for Antoine Douglas, and the 23-year-old middleweight did so emphatically. Douglas took apart a shopworn fighter dug up from Australia who hadn’t fought in close to year, stopping hapless Les Sherrington in the outside arena at the D Hotel & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Showtime’s ShoBox show Friday night.

Douglas (19-0-1, 13 KOs) remained undefeated in what was scheduled 10-round middleweight affair that appeared more like an exhibition. It marked Douglas’ fifth—and last time—on ShoBox. The 33-year-old Sherrington (35-8, 19 KOs) was knocked down six times, before referee Kenny Bayless stepped in and thankfully waved it over at 1:02 of the fourth.

Does it help Douglas?

That’s up for debate.

What wasn’t was Douglas’ dominance, landing 37 of 64 power shots (58-percent), 24 of 45 jabs (53-percent) and 61 of 109 total punches (56-percent). Sherrington, who had not fought since Dec. 12, 2014 when he decisioned Samir Santos Barbosa, landed a total of 15-111 (14-percent) through four rounds.

“Of course it was cold (fighting outside), but none of that really mattered once I warmed up,” Douglas said. “We stuck to the game plan. Boxed outside with the jab and we intended to get to the body. As soon as we got the body, it happened to work. It wasn’t that I knew I would hurt him with the right hand. I saw a fight of his where his left hand was very low so I wanted to capitalize with the right hand. My team will talk it over together what we’ll plan (for 2016).”

On the first televised undercard fight, lightweight Sam Teah (7-1, 2 KOs) handed O’Shaquie “Ice Water” Foster (8-1, 5 KOs) his first pro defeat with an eight-round unanimous decision. It was the first time both fighters ever went eight rounds. And though Teah won by a unanimous decision on the scorecards of judges Glenn Trowbridge (79-73), Patricia Morse Jarman (77-75) and Dave Moretti (77-75), there was very little separating the two. It was simply a case of Teah doing more than Foster, who had a distinguished amateur past and was very underwhelming.

Shostats revealed Teah landed 128-471 total punches (27-percent) to Foster’s 91-248 (37-percent). The jab proved to be the difference. Teah connected on 63 of 277 jabs thrown (23-percent) to Foster’s 32-137 (23-percent).

In an eight-round welterweight fight, Keenan Smith (9-0, 3 KOs) outlasted Benjamin Whitaker (10-2, 2 KOs) by unanimous decision. There were some scary moments for Smith, 25, a 2008 national Golden Gloves 125-pound champion who had 76 amateur bouts, before his career had been sidetracked by a prison stint.

An unintentional head butt opened a pretty deep cut on Smith’s left eyebrow. In the last 30 seconds of the sixth round, the fighters got tangled up and Whitaker actually picked up Smith and flung him to the canvas. Referee Robert Byrd warned both fighters to knock off the shenanigans. As Whitaker appeared to be gaining momentum, Smith connected with a right that sent Whitaker to the canvas for a flash knockdown with around 2:30 left in the seventh round.

Smith won easily. He landed a total of 61-289 punches (21-percent), and was most effective with his power shots (48-152 (32-percent), though he lacked a consistent jab 13-137 (9-percent). Whitaker connected on 69-of-307 (22-percent) total punches, and 58-of-232 power shots (25-percent) and a mere 11 of 75 jabs (15-percent).

In a scheduled 10-rounder, Ukrainian welterweight Taras Shelestyuk (13-0, 8 KOs), who won the bronze medal as a welterweight at the 2012 Olympics, made easy work of Aslanbek Kozaev (26-2-1, 7 KOs), connecting on a total of 408-854 punches (48-percent) in winning the unanimous decision. Kozaev was able to only land 23 of 151 jabs (15-percent), while Shelestyuk’s power punches were very accurate (249-404, 62-percent).

Shelestyuk won virtually every round, something the judges saw, scoring it 99-91 and 100-90 (2) for the Ukrainian.