Mike Plania has arrived.
The Filipino, who is from the same hometown as Manny Pacquiao, put bantamweight contender Joshua Greer down twice with left hooks and went on two win a majority decision in a 10-round bout Tuesday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Plania (24-1, 12 KOs) knocked Greer (22-2-1, 12 KOs) flat on his back less than two minutes into the fight, giving him an advantage from the start. Greer fought carefully — too carefully? — after that, which allowed a confident Plania to dictate the action and take a lead on the cards.
Greer went down again from the same punch in Round 6, putting him in an even bigger hole. That seemed to wake Greer up, as he fought with urgency from then on. He went from sticking and moving to standing in front of Plania and trading punches, getting the better of most exchanges.
However, it was too late for the Chicago product, at least on two cards. Judge Dave Moretti had it 94-94, meaning he thought Greer won six of the 10 rounds. The other judges turned in scores of 96-92 and 97-91 for Plania, giving him the victory.
Greer, ranked by three of the four major sanctioning bodies going into the fight, will now have to rebuild. Plania, whose nickname is “Magic,” presumably will shoot up the rankings.
“This win is going to change my life,” said a jubilant Plania, from General Santos City. “I think Greer underestimated me. He kept saying, ‘Night Night,’ but tonight, it was magic time.
“I thought I could knock him out after the knockdown in the first round, but he was tough and adjusted his strategy. I took this fight on only three weeks’ notice, but I had faith in God that I could win.”
In the co-feature, Giovani Santillan survived a spirited effort from 34-year-old veteran Antonio DeMarco to win a 10-round welterweight fight by a majority decision.
The fight was competitive throughout but DeMarco (33-9-1, 24 KOs) seemed to be landing the harder, more-accurate punches by the middle rounds and was building toward an upset. However, Santillan (26-0, 15 KOs) picked up his pace to rally in the late rounds.
One judge had it 95-95 but the other two scored it 96-94 in Santillan’s favor to preserve the 28-year-old San Diegan’s perfect record.
DeMarco, a former lightweight titleholder from Mexico, has now lost six of his last eight fights, although the previous five setbacks were all against quality opponents.
Santillan looked at the fight as a valuable learning experience.
“I knew it was a close fight, but I felt like I did enough solid work in there to pull out the win,” Santillan said. “He never hurt me at any point in the fight, but he used his experience in there. He’s a former world champion who has been in there with the best of the best.
“I want to get back in the ring as soon as possible and use this experience to my advantage.”
In other preliminary bouts, big-punching Nikoloz Sekhniashvili (6-0, 4 KOs) was unable to take out durable Isiah Jones (8-2, 3 KOs) but outworked the Detroit fighter to win a unanimous six-round unanimous decision.
Sekhniashvili, from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, attacked Jones from beginning to end but Jones proved to have both a good chin and polished survival skills. He didn’t do much in the way of fighting back, which is reflected in the official scorecards: 59-55, 60-54, 60-54, all in favor of Sekhniashvili.
In a six-round junior middleweight fight, Bobirzhan Mominov (11-0, 8 KOs) threw punches at a feverish rate to defeat Cameron Krael (17-16-3, 4 KOs) of Las Vegas by a unanimous decision.
Mominov, from the same town in Kazakhstan as Gennadiy Golovkin, fired hard, accurate punches from the opening bell to the end of the entertaining fight. Krael, tough and capable, simply couldn’t keep pace with the winner.
The scores were 57-56, 58-55, 58-55. Mominov lost a point because of a rabbit punch in the sixth round.
And Hector Perez (7-2, 3 KOs) of Tamarac, Florida defeated Juan Torres (5-3-1, 2 KOs) of Cypress, Texas by a unanimous decision in a six-round heavyweight fight.