Abraham Nova continued his march toward a title shot but he probably didn’t frighten any of the beltholders by his performance on Thursday night.
Nova had difficulty with the slick, quick Avery Sparrow, going long periods with little activity, but he did enough to win a unanimous decision in a 10-round junior welterweight fight on the Jason Moloney-Leonard Baez card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The scores were 99-91, 97-93 and 96-94.
Sparrow (10-2, 3 KOs) threw a lot of punches but the vast majority of them hit only air. Still, his output and effective movement proved to be a challenge for Nova, who threw punches aggressively only occasionally.
The best example of that came in Round 8, when Nova (19-0, 14 KOs) stunned Sparrow with a hard right and followed with a flurry that forced his opponent to hold on for dear life. Sparrow, Philadelphia tough, survived and went back to boxing carefully.
In the end, Nova apparently won for a simple reason: He landed more and harder punches in a tactical fight that probably was disappointing for fans expecting to see more from the Puerto Rican slugger.
In other preliminaries, Puerto Rican prospect Orlando Gonzalez (15-0, 10 KOs) put Luis Porozo (15-3, 8 KOs) of Ecuador down twice en route to a unanimous decision victory in an eight-round featherweight bout.
The fight between two technically proficient boxers was largely tactical. Gonzalez was more assertive but had trouble at times with Porozo’s speed and slick skills.
The knockdowns were the difference. In Round 2, the southpaw Gonzalez landed a short, hard left and a grazing left that put Porozo down. Then, in Round 7, a simple left to the body forced Porozo to take a knee.
The scores were 77-73, 77-73 and 76-74.
Also, Vlad Panin (8-1, 4 KOs) of Los Angeles rebounded from his first career setback to defeat Benjamin Whitaker (13-4, 3 KOs) San Antonio by a majority decision in a six-round welterweight bout. The scores were 58-56, 58-56 and 57-57.
Panin lost a unanimous decision to Moises Fuentes in a six-round bout in February.
And, in a scheduled six-round heavyweight fight, Kingsley Ibeh (4-1, 4 KOs) of Nigeria avenged an earlier split-decision loss to Waldo Cortes (5-3, 2 KOs) of Phoenix by stopping Cortes at 1:41 of Round 4.
The ending was strange. Cortes had his left arm draped around the neck of Ibeh, who, in that position, landed five uppercuts. He followed with two rights and a grazing left, which put Cortes down. He was able to get up but couldn’t continue.