Highlights and results: Jarrell Miller stops Lucas Browne in sixth round

Jarrell Miller put Lucas Browne away in the sixth round of an entertaining brawl from Dubai.

“Big Baby” was able to beat down “Big Daddy” in Dubai, as Jarrell Miller stopped Lucas Browne late in the sixth round of what wasn’t the prettiest fight, but certainly an entertaining heavyweight brawl.

The 43-year-old Browne (31-4, 27 KO) looked a bit more fluid than he is in recent years, but that may have been down to how slow the 333 lb Miller (26-0-1, 22 KO) looked for much of the fight.

But when Jarrell let his hands go in round four, for instance, you could see flashes of the “Big Baby” who had fought his way to a 2019 bout with Anthony Joshua that wound up never happening, and he showed that again in the sixth, where he may have decided to uncork what was left of his energy with another barrage, dropping Browne and then finishing him off moments later.

Miller, 34, still will have a major problem going forward, as far as getting big fights. Sanctioning bodies and power promoters tend to work in a sort of symbiosis to run boxing as it has been run for the last 30 or 40 years, and power promoters will rightfully be skeptical about putting money behind any fight that involves Jarrell Miller. He screwed the pooch in that regard with both Matchroom and Top Rank in recent years.

In short, it takes money to even put a fight together — to book a venue, to promote it, to fill out the undercard, all that stuff — and if a promoter feels like they can’t rely on a headliner to actually make it to fight night, that’s a huge issue.

So even if Miller gets good sanctioning body rankings, that won’t mean anything, really, if promoters don’t want to play ball. These things are rarely if ever forced, it comes down to an agreement with all parties more often than not, everyone working together.

But we’ll see what happens. Another hard truth is, while this fight was entertaining, it was miles off top level heavyweight boxing. Miller may have some charisma and a personality, but he’s also at best a deeply divisive figure and it’s not like he’s ever been some big money drawing card in his career. He is not the fighter right now that he was five years ago when he was getting an HBO push, and while he may say he wants Anthony Joshua or Daniel Dubois, either one of those guys would be expected to obliterate the Miller we’ve seen since his comeback started last summer.

Miller vs Browne highlights

More results

• Soslan Asbarov MD-10 Brandon Glanton: Scores were 95-95, which was fair, and then 97-93 and 98-92 for Asbarov, which seem wide. This is with all respect to Asbarov, who took big shots, didn’t fold, showed how tough he is, and did enough to maybe win six rounds here, it’s not that he won, it’s that we have all seen boxing and generally have a feeling for what happened here. Asbarov goes to 4-0 (1 KO) and Glanton falls to 17-2 (14 KO) in a second straight debatable defeat. As with the loss to David Light, Glanton refused to make a stink about the scoring. The guy is a class act and a warrior, and we will see him again. He’s still a player in the cruiserweight division, because even with the two losses, it’s obvious he can fight, and he’s good TV.

• Samat Abdyrakhmanov UD-4 Nicolas David Veron: Judges all had it 39-35. What more do you want me to say? Another bare knuckle guy winning a fight. There’s no significant boxing future for him. The fight was alright to watch.
• Emil Novruzov TKO-2 Yeison Gonzalez: Novruzov, 27, was making his pro debut here. They hyped him as a “bare knuckle champion” which in 2023 can mean any of about 40 different things. Gonzalez falls to 17-11 (12 KO) and was stopped for a 10th time. The finish wasn’t exactly exciting or anything.

• Jono Carroll UD-10 Miguel Marriaga: A good scrap, with high effort from both veterans. Carroll (24-2-1, 7 KO) got scores of 98-92, 99-91, and 100-90; he definitely didn’t win all 10 rounds, but he did deserve the victory. Marriaga (30-7, 26 KO) is for sure a faded veteran at this point, but this was closer to the level he can still sort of compete. He was better against Carroll than he was against Joet Gonzalez, Eduardo Ramirez, or Michael Conlan over the last couple of years. That maybe says more about Carroll’s level, but that’s also not really a surprise, Carroll’s 30, his level is known. But no matter who he fights, he will give maximum effort to win.
• Kureysh Sagov D-8 Ali Baloyev: They said this was for “the HBA world championship,” which absolutely not, my dudes. Sagov (8-2-1, 4 KO) stopped Baloyev (12-1-1, 8 KO) last September in Moscow, a seventh round TKO in a fight Baloyev was winning on the cards. If anyone was better in this one, it was Sagoyev, who just seems to have Baloyev’s number a bit, and also Baloyev just isn’t that good. Neither of them are, really. But the world championship!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of “HBA”!!!!!!

• Ruslan Fayfer SD-8 German Garcia Montes: Ugly fight. Fayfer, a former cruiserweight hopeful now campaigning (sorta) at heavyweight, got two cards of 77-75, and the other went to Garcia on the same score. Fayfer (28-4-1, 18 KO) is 31 years old and has no real hope of being a contender or anything, he’s way too small at heavyweight and was failing to cut the mustard at higher levels at cruiser, but he’s a scrapper, battled through what appeared to be an ankle injury to make the distance here, gritting through the pain. Garcia (8-5, 8 KO) gave a solid effort all things considered and almost pulled off what would have been his second straight upset win.