Contributor: Nolan Howell
A Friday double-bill of boxing on DAZN and ESPN+ brought us some of the same old, same old and some of the unexpected.
On DAZN, Demetrius Andrade started his WBO Middleweight Championship defense campaign against Artur Akavov at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden. Andrade was clearly a cut above in every round, dominating while also not doing too much to kick it into second-gear. A severely outclassed Akavov was told before the final round to show some fight by notorious referee Arthur Mercante Jr. and he got hit with a few punches, prompting an unexpected stoppage. Akavov deserved to make it to the cards and was really in no danger, but it was a foregone conclusion regardless of the bad stoppage. Andrade seemed ready to challenge Gennady Golovkin in his post-fight interview and those are likely the only fights worth making for Andrade.
It was business as usual for most of the night on DAZN, with IBF Super Bantamweighy Champion TJ Doheny stopping Ryohei Takahashi in the eleventh round after piling it up on the cards, Amanda Serrano knocking out Eva Voraberger in less than a minute to win the women’s WBO super flyweight title, and Chris Algieri just squeaking by Daniel Gonzalez in a unanimous decsion win for the WBO International junior welterweight title.
However, the DAZN card featured a stunning upset as Pablo Cesar Cano 
blitzed Jorge Linares in the first round for a stoppage to retain his WBC International Silver super lightweight belt, likely sending Linares back down to lightweight after he looked unable to handle power punches.
The upsets continued on ESPN+ as Bryant Jennings looked primed to cruise to a defense of his IBF International and WBO-NABO heavyweight titles, outscoring Oscar Rivas throughout in the main event. Rivas needed to score a knockout or face a loss on the cards and he managed to pull through. After a left hook, Rivas spammed powerful hooks to drop Jennings, who barely beat the count. Rivas never took his foot off the gas and forced the stoppage for the comeback upset win.
In the co-main, featherweight Shakur Stevenson continued his climb with an easy fourth-round TKO over Jessie Chris Rosales and challenged Josh Warrington off his IBF title defense against Carl Frampton.
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