Manila – Filipino boxer Mike Plania scored a majority decision victory over the heavily favored Joshua Greer in their non-title bantamweight bout on Tuesday night (Wednesday in Manila) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
It was a shock of a victory for the General Santos City-native as he was a massive 3-1 underdog heading into the match against Greer, the no. 1 ranked bantamweight boxer by the World Boxing Organization.
Plania, fighting out of Sanman Boxing Promotions, set the tempo of the match with two knockdowns before winning the scorecards of judges Patricia Morse-Jarman (97-91) and Tim Cheatham (96-92), but was an even 94-94 on Dave Moretti.
Plania was aggressive in the opening round as he floored Greer with just a minute into the opening round. The American was knocked down again in the canvas in the sixth round with yet another Plania left hook.
Greer tried to salvage a victory at the latter part of the match dominating the final two rounds but Plania did just enough to keep the top contender at bay.
The 23-year-old Plania improves his record to 24-1 with 12 stoppage wins, while Greer’s 19-fight winning streak comes to an end as he dropped to 22-2-1, including 12 KO wins.
The Plania-Greer clash was the main event of Top Rank Promotion’s third closed-door boxing show this month since the resumption of boxing from the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic./PN
