We had a fantastic night of fighting, starting with Premier Boxing Champions tripleheader on Showtime from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, a building in which Garcia has headlined eight times.

Before we talk about the headline Garcia we do have to talk about Gary Antuanne Russell, 16-0 (16) controversial stoppage against a former 2-division champ Rances “Kid Blast” Barthelemy, 29-2-1-1nc (15).

In the first round, Russell dominated until inside the final minute when Barthelemy stunned him with a right hook. In the second and third rounds, Barthelemy begins to switch stances from orthodox to southpaw which seems to bother Russell. Russell continued to pressure and outwork him.

In the fourth round, Barthelemy did find some success with a strong flurry of punches to finish the round. In the fifth round, both had their moments with Russell taking the round.

In the sixth round, Russell landed a right hook on the chin of Barthelemy that put him down for an 8-count from referee Shada Murdock. Barthelemy was up at the count of four and looked like he could continue the fight. Unfortunately, while the referee looked into the eyes of the fallen boxer, he shockingly waved it off. As rightfully deserve really so the referee got a loud booing from the crowd. It was one of the most outrageous calls of this year.

The Controversial call makes Russell’s perfect KO ratio still intact. Russell did perform well enough to take on the top names in the 140 lbs division. We always hear Ryan Garcia calling out Gervonta Davis but the ideal and most realistic fight to make is Gary Antuanne Russell at 140.

Now onto the Main event with former WBC & WBA Light Welterweight and WBC Welterweight World champion Danny “Swift” Garcia returning after 19 months to put on a boxing masterclass win over former WBA Interim Super Lightweight champion Jose “Merciless” Benavidez, Jr. 

Despite the long layoff and the move up in weight class Garcia just put on a boxing clinic in his 154 lbs division debut. In the first three rounds, Benavidez was the aggressor while Garcia countered beautifully well taking all three rounds though close. After that Garcia ran away with the fight, landing great jabs and body shots. Garcia finished the night with over 50% of his power punches landed and over 100 body punches. Benavidez simply didn’t have an answer for Garcia.

Even if it was against a lackluster opponent, Garcia aced his debut fight as a junior middleweight and even talked about his battle with anxiety and depression during his time away from the sport. 

We finish the night by watching Amanda Nunes recapturing the women’s bantamweight belt in UFC 277. Nunes vowed to make changes in her game. She vowed to get her belt back after shockingly losing it seven months ago to Julianna Peña.

In the rematch, Nunes did exactly what she promised by showing off a brand new southpaw stance on the feet and a renewed wrestling game, Nunes defeated Peña via a dominant unanimous decision (50-45, 50-44, 50-43). With the victory, Nunes, the greatest female fighter in MMA history became the first UFC fighter to defend two titles in separate weight classes concurrently — and has seven title defenses across two divisions, the most for a woman in UFC history. DamNear GOAT Status.

Now the scorecards don’t tell the whole story fight, although Nunes dominated the fight in all categories. Peña showed her Champion heart, giving Nunes a couple of problems in the championship rounds. Throwing submissions after submissions after submissions. She simply did not want to give up and wasn’t going to make anything easy for Nunes.

In the first two rounds, Nunes was showing off her new stances and dropped Peña at least three different times with a few quick check hooks. In the later rounds, Nunes implied wrestling to the game plan and landed some significant elbows that cut Peña. Again Peña did not give up despite getting beaten up and leaking blood everywhere in the ring. This was a brutal fight, an amazing display by both ladies.

I can honestly say it was a good Saturday fight night.