PBC on NBCSN: Kevin Bizier Pulls Off Upset of Frederick Lawson

Kevin Bizier is an anachronism. It wouldn’t be hard to envision the 31-year-old Canadian welterweight on a black-and-white 1950’s Zenith. Backing his opponent up, applying constant pressure behind a sickle-like left hook fired from what seems like myriad angles, Bizier possesses an old-school style that is fundamentally sound and he’s surprisingly faster than he looks.

Bizier wasn’t supposed to beat Frederick Lawson Saturday night on the Premier Boxing Champions show on NBCSN, from the Miccosukee Indian Gaming Resort, in Miami, Florida. But that’s exactly what he did, bulling forward to pull off a mild upset with a 10-round TKO to win a IBF welterweight title eliminator over the previously unbeaten Lawson (24-1, 20 KOs).

Making his United States debut, Bizier (25-2, 17 KOs) now has a chance to face IBF welterweight world champion Kell Brook (35-0, 24 KOs).

Bizier made it possible by knocking down Lawson in the fifth, catching the 26-year old with a blunt, and compact right to the chin. But throughout the fight, it was his left hook that was wearing down Lawson, touching him in the face and most effectively to the body.

After the 10th, Lawson, from Accra, Ghana, told his trainer, Abel Sanchez, who also trains Gennady Golovkin, that his jaw was bothering him. Sanchez notified ringside physician Dr. Mark Gordon and referee Sam Burgos that he believed Lawson suffered a broken right jaw and saved his fighter by stopping the fight.

“I was training all of the time for 12 rounds and the plan was to put the pressure (on Lawson),” said Bizier, who had the biggest victory of his career.

Sanchez could see his fighter was wavering. The right side of Lawson’s face was beginning to swell in the later rounds.

“In that particular round when he came back to the corner, I noticed some swelling on the right side of (Lawson’s) face and I asked him if anything was wrong and how he felt,” Sanchez said. “He didn’t answer me. And I when I touched the right side of his face where the swelling was, he did say something about his jaw. At that point, I had to make the decision. I wasn’t going to let him go out there with a broken jaw. I think we were behind (at that point). It could have been a close fight. The knockdown (in the fifth) hurt us, but I thought Bizier would be a little wore down at the end of the fight. It turns out he was still strong in that 10th round.”

From the opening bell, Bizier kept coming forward, crowding Lawson and working behind a high guard. Anything Lawson threw Bizier caught. But Lawson couldn’t deal with Bizier’s pressure. He was confused by the Canadian’s up-and-down attack, landing the right to the face and dropping a left hook into the ribs. And so it went, round-after-round, with Bizier moving forward, and Lawson backing up.

In the fifth, Bizier threw a different look and this, too, caught Lawson by surprise. He was initially stunned about 15 seconds into the fifth by a Bizier right to the temple. About 15 seconds later, Bizier unfurled a textbook right on Lawson’s chin, sending him stumbling backwards into the ropes. Burgos immediately stepped in and called it a knockdown.

After 10, Lawson could barely speak when Sanchez asked him if everything was okay. The veteran trainer knew enough to save his fighter from more harm.

In the co-feature, 28-year-old junior welterweight Keita Obara (15-1-1, 14 KOs) was fighting for the first time outside of his native Japan—and after receiving a grand rip-off in a 12-round majority draw against veteran Walter Castillo (26-3-1, 19 KOs) no one will question if he never fights in the U.S. again.

Obara’s face told the story—one of utter shock after the 114-114 scores of judges John Rupert and Mark Streisand were read (judge Michael Ancona had it 115-113 for Obara). Based on the criteria of effective aggression, clean punching and ring generalship, Obara was the dominant fighter in all three phases.

More so, the numbers bore out Obara’s control of the fight. He connected on a total of 230-687 (33%) punches, landed 160-415 (39%) power punches and 70-272 (26%) jabs. Now compare that to Castillo’s 166-656 (25%) total connects, 125-396 (32%) power connects and 41-260 (16%) jabs and you don’t have to be a boxing expert to figure out who the winner should have been.

Another telltale sign was Castillo’s face was marked up. He was cut on his right eye lid and his left ear was bleeding, which was cause enough for referee Frank Santore Jr. to take a close look at his condition in the latter rounds.

Still, Obara blamed himself for the controversial outcome.

“It’s my fault, I couldn’t knock him out,” Obara said. “It was fun fighting in the United States for the first time.”

With 2:27 left in the 11th, Santore Jr. temporarily stopped the fight so the ringside physician, Dr. Gordon, could take a look at Castillo’s cut right eye. In the last minute of the 11th, blood was dripping down into Castillo’s right eye. He kept blinking, which caused Santore to take a closer look at Castillo between the 11th and 12th rounds. Santore also made Dr. Gordon look at Castillo’s left ear, which was also bleeding.

Castillo had never been 12 rounds before facing Obara. It showed. Though gutsy, the Nicaraguan had little left. Obara was brilliant and accurate, countering Castillo’s slow, wieldy shots with power punches to the body and snapping Castillo’s head back with his jab.

Yet when he heard the final verdict, Obara’s eyes lit up and his mouth flew open wide in disbelief, a reaction shared by many at ringside.

Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writ-er's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing cover-age. His archive can be found here.