BROOKLYN – The Premier Boxing Champions Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia opener featured a super welterweight eliminator bout between fast-rising southpaw Erickson “Hammer” Lubin (17-0, 12 KOs) and Jorge “Demonio” Cota (25-1, 22 KOs) – with the winner likely to get a shot at WBC world champion Jermell Charlo.
The knock out specialist Lubin – the WBC’s #4-ranked super welterweight – entered the fight a week after watching his peer Jarrett Hurd capture his first world title with a 9th round knock out of Tony Harrison.
Lubin started out relatively patient not looking to take advantage of the fact Cota was coming off a lengthy layoff. He flicked his right jab and fought at a pace to get a good feel for Cota’s approach to the fight.
As the action moved into round two both men fought from a southpaw stance, Lubin being a natural left-hander with Cota abandoning his regular orthodox stance to offset any advantage of Lubin. Cota constantly stood in a wide-legged stance fighting off his back foot, but sending a message that his fight plan didn’t include running from Lubin’s power.
In round three Lubin stepped up the pace some and forced Cota into the ropes to bang away with some of his best shots to that point in the fight. Shortly after that exchange a lead left hand from Lubin briefly staggered Cota, and the Florida native moved in to finish Cota, but he only managed to dominate the balance of the round. According to CompuBox Lubin connected with 21 of 35 power punches in round three.
By the fourth round Lubin was fully confident that Cota wasn’t capable of catching him with anything significant. He shed the patient fight approach and moved in to turn the action up again. Lubin set up Cota with a deep squat and a slight feint as the Mexican stood along the ropes, and then the southpaw lunged in with a looping overhand left that landed flush on Cota’s chin before sending him flat onto his back parallel to the bottom rope. Cota managed to get back to his feet, but referee Earl Brown wisely stopped the fight at 1:25.
After the fight Lubin described his finish to fight with, “I baited him with the jab. I knew he was going to come with the big shots early. I put a few tricks on him, I landed that overhand right and it was night-night. I put my hands down to bait him in, I did a squat and then it was night-night. I was ready to follow-up with a right but he was already out.
He also added his thoughts on the opportunity to possibly fight for a world title in the near future stating, “That would mean a lot to me; that would mean a lot to Orlando, Florida.
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