TESS VALMORE


The November PPV was a large card that featured three title fights. Righetti surprised no one by beating Freeman to retain her welterweight title. Taylor Swift successfully defended her title by beating Missy Peregrym. The fight of the night and probably the fight of the year belonged to the “little girls," the flyweights. Emma Watson and Vanessa Hudgens put on a twelve round extravaganza which ended with Watson KOing Hudgens to remain the flyweight champion.

Righetti continued to make a joke of the welterweights. Unfortunately, that doesn’t take much and the joke isn’t funny. In this fight, her challenger entered the bout with a 1-5 record for the year. In what other division would that happen? Sure, Righetti will eventually lose, but in the meantime the division continues to deteriorate. On this card, there were 44 bouts. How many were true welter bouts? Two! That’s 4% of the fights. 

In the lightweights, Swift is now considering her next defense. I had been pounding the table for DiDonato, but Lima sidetracked that and instead put herself back into the title hunt. Of course, Kendall Jenner is there, but she has been all along. Swift has been able to ignore her. Gonzales is making some noise but I don’t think she is to the point of deserving a title chance.

Bella Thorne is defending her title on the Doll Ball Season Two, Round ten event. That will be on December 21, and will probably be the last bantam title fight of the year. Meanwhile, the line of possible choices is getting longer. Kosarin, Lilly, Larson and Dobrev all won and there is Bennet. Any of the five would be a decent choice.  Lilly has been circling the title for almost two years. Since losing the title early last year, she and gone 18-3 with no invitation. Kosarin’s win over Lovato might have jumped her into the number one spot.

After the great fight on this PPV, you can’t blame Watson if she wants to take the rest of the year off. Like the bantams, the flyweight line is growing. Olivia Holt and Lavigne are there with Megan Fox and Jessica Lowndes right with them. Emma Roberts lost her place in line by losing to Hale in what was the upset of the night. Michelle Williams won and certainly should be in line, but I don’t think she is going to get a shot. I think there is a feeling that she has had too many titles and doesn’t need another one.

In an encouraging development, the cougar fights, including the Union/Theron fight which was not listed as cougar, set a new record going to four for the first time. At this writing two of the cougar bouts are in the top 25% of views.

Fights by rounds-Thirty one percent of fights ended in the fifth round and sixty-three percent of fights ended before the end of the sixth. All decisions were by knockouts.