Raul Curiel broke new ground in his most recent victory.
The unbeaten welterweight prospect was nearly forced to go all ten rounds for the first time in his six-plus year career as he outpointed Courtney Pennington. A strange call by referee Gerard White instead provided Curiel with his deepest stoppage to date, which came at 2:53 of round ten in their DAZN-aired main event Thursday evening from Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California.
It was a learning lesson wrapped in an uneven performance for Curiel, a 2016 Mexican Olympian who is guided by Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach. The 27-year-old Guadalajara native has now stopped each of his past eight opponents, though in a variety of ways. Five knockouts went six rounds or more, including a June 2021 ninth-round stoppage of Ferdinand Kerobyan in his previously deepest fight to date.
Pennington (17-7-3, 7KOs) was determined to go all ten, though not in a sense of merely lasting the distance. The Brooklyn native used constant movement and spacing to force Curiel to come forward, but also planted his feet and occasionally landed right hands to the body.
The head shots offered by Pennington, however, did not deter Curiel from charging inside. The unbeaten Mexican struggled to cut off the ring, though, and forced a lot of his power shots. The performance wasn’t nearly as fluid as his violent second-round knockout of Brad Solomon last December 17, his most recent bout prior to Thursday.
Curiel was able to consistently land right hands, particularly in the second half of the fight. Pennington bled from the mouth while Curiel barely had a mark on his face after ten rounds of hard work.
There was a brief moment in round eight when it appeared that Curiel would extend his knockout streak. Pennington was pinned along the ropes but was able to weather the storm and make it out of the round.
The tenth and final round saw Pennington briefly let his hands go before a Curiel combination upstairs forced him to cover up and retreat to the ropes. Curiel continued to work for the knockout and landed a lead left hook upstairs. Curiel connected with several left hooks in the final minute.
A left hook briefly forced Pennington to stutter step, at which point White appeared ready—and determined—to stop the fight. That moment would come with the next combination offered by Curiel. A right hand and left hooks drove Pennington to the ropes just as the ten-second clapper sounded. White decided it was time to end the fight, which prompted a verbal protest by the Pennington team.
Curiel advanced to 13-0 (11KOs) with the win. He has fought just once in 2022 and 2023, though Golden Boy plans to bring him back before the end of the year.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox