Alycia Baumgardner is the new IBF lightweight champion, and the judges didn’t give Elif Turhan a single round. Baumgardner took the belt from Turhan by unanimous decision on Sunday night in the MVPW 07 main event in Arlington, Texas, with all three cards reading 100-90, according to MiddleEasy’s round-by-round coverage. That’s a full sweep, the kind of scorecard you usually see when one fighter spends the night shopping for a place to hide.
Most Valuable Promotions made it official on X right after the decision, announcing Baumgardner as the new IBF lightweight world champion and later labeling her a two-time world champ. The card aired on ESPN, with the main card starting at 8:30 p.m. ET and prelims running on the ESPN App from 5:15 p.m. ET.
The fight wasn’t a jab-and-coast affair either. MVP posted a clip claiming Baumgardner almost knocked Turhan out, which tracks with a shutout on paper. And Baumgardner apparently enjoyed the parts where Turhan landed. Asked about taking shots, she gave a two-word answer that MVP clipped and posted: “I liked it.” Fighters who say that are either lying or a little bit unwell, and both types tend to win a lot.
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The Dubois Subplot
The most interesting part of the night might have been in the crowd. MVP posted a shot of Stephanie Han, Shakur Stevenson and Caroline Dubois sitting ringside during the fight, which matters because two days earlier, on Friday, MVP posted that Baumgardner had called out Dubois. So the woman she named was close enough to hear her gloves land while she put on a 10-round clinic against the IBF champ. If you’re promoting a sequel, you can’t script the seating chart much better than that.
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Baumgardner looked dialed in all weekend. MVP hyped her weigh-in look at Saturday’s event (6 p.m. CT, streamed on MVP’s YouTube and the ESPN App), then raved about her ring walk on fight night. After the win, the promotion summed up the celebration on X by saying she “put belt to ass the Texas way,” which I’m choosing to read as a compliment to the state of Texas.
Tommy’s Take
I love a fighter who names her next opponent before she’s even won the belt that makes the fight make sense. Baumgardner called out Dubois on Friday, then went out Sunday and pitched a shutout with Dubois watching from ringside. Turhan walked in as the champion and walked out without a round on any card. That’s a statement, and it hands MVP the easiest matchmaking decision of its year. Book Baumgardner vs. Dubois, put both of them on a dais, and let the face-off do the marketing. If that fight doesn’t get made next, somebody is ducking, and it won’t be the one who just went 100-90 three times.
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