Jermaine Franklin (20-0, 13 KO’s) looked pretty good Saturday. This was his third time on Showtime, and the talking heads were pretty merciless before the fight, saying that he was a big disappointment in his first two TV engagements. Not that I disagreed, he was dull. Maybe even lethargic.

He came in at his lightest weight in a quite a while, giving hope that he would fight more aggressively. He did that in round one, and he rocked his man four times that I counted. It looked to me that if he had kept his foot on the gas, he could have ended it early.

But instead, he slowed it down. Remarkably, that is precisely what his corner told him to do. “slow it down and pick your shots”. Weird.

While he did win convincingly, (scoring a knockdown in the later rounds) he fought like a much bigger man, conserving energy, fighting at a slow pace. He does have fast hands, though, and I look forward to see him make the jump to the next level.

By the way, his 20-0 record is not like the farce that is Otto Wallin’s record. Franklin’s opponents have a combined record of 188 – 49.

Side bar: It is a crying shame what happened to Claressa Shields (and her opponent and the fellow that got hurt). I hope she cleans house. Buster fired his own father and he did alright.

In other news Oleksandr Usyk is going to fight Tyrone Spong on October 12. I know Spong as a kickboxer. I had to look up his record, which is 13-0. He’s achieved that by fighting less than stellar competition. Still he has lots of combat experience and savvy, he could be a good test for Usyk. I doubt it, but he could. I think Usyk is going to be too fast for him.

Usyk just seems to have scary talent. We all know Evander Hollyfield and Michael Moorer moved up from cruiserweight, and they did more than OK. Tomasz Adamek too. Lets see what this guy can do.

One unfortunate thing though, if you’re like me and like eleven year old boy humor:

Spelled different, but pronouced the same.

I propose that his official heavyweight nickname be “Walrus”. That would be even funnier than Jimmy Lennon Jr.’s ‘fart fans.’