By: Sean Crose
The 30-3-1 Shawn Porter returned to the ring after almost a year to face the widely unknown 22-0 Sebastian Formella at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday. The fight was the main event of a PBC card which was aired live on Fox. Formella employed solid ring generalship in the first. Porter went into classic Porter form in the second, bulling ahead and making it gritty. By the third, Porter was stalking and looking very sharp as he followed through with power shots behind a piston jab.
The fourth saw Formella doing as well as possible, but Porter was throwing heavy punches without looking stiff. Formella was doing fine – he just wasn’t at the skill level of Porter. Formella was able to land clean in the fifth, but it wasn’t enough to hold off the intensely aggressive former two time titlist. By the sixth, victory appeared to be only a matter of time for Porter.
To his well earned credit – Formella took to hunting Porter down in the seventh. Soon, however, Porter was once again the aggressor. Indeed, the man ended the round in brutal fashion, pounding Formella in the face with expertly thrown punches. Porter continued to bang away in the eighth, but Formella remained in the bout, regularly showing a willingness to trade.
By the end of the ninth, Porter didn’t even seem tired as he walked back to his corner after another successful three minutes of action. Porter turned up his attack in the tenth, but Formella continued to stay on his feet. Although he now had little chance of winning, the German fighter was still able to keep from being stopped. Nonetheless, Porter cruised through the eleventh.
The last round saw Porter try to finish things before the final bell. Formella was perhaps more skilled than some had given him credit for (though Porter made it clear before the fight that Formella was a foe who needed to be treated seriously), but he didn’t have what it took to win. Porter won the round, and the fight, via scores of 120-108, 120-108, and 120-108.