SERGIO MARTINEZ HOPES THERE IS STILL GAIN TO ALL HIS PAIN

Published

11 years ago

May 21, 2014

Bernard Fernandez

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

–Friedrich Nietzsche

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

–Familiar U.S. Marine Corps recruiting slogan

Nietzsche, the German philosopher/poet who died in 1900, would not seem to have much in common with, say, Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway, the crusty, battle-tested leatherneck played by Clint Eastwood in the 1986 cinematic ode to the USMC, “Heartbreak Ridge.”

But Nietzsche and some Marine recruiter with a high-and-tight haircut and combat ribbons on his uniform aren’t as dissimilar as might appear at first glance. There is a little bit of each within the complex, enigmatic and fascinating mind and heart of the great Argentine boxer, Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez.

Perhaps Martinez, 39, is not the fight game’s ultimate mystery man, but even now, 17 years after his professional debut and 55 bouts into a brilliant career that appears to be winding down, he remains curiously distant to American fight fans who apparently prefer headliners who speak fluent trash and enter the ring with the clear, easily understood intention of knocking the snot out of their opponents. A lot of us, it would seem, prefer our favorite boxers to be cartoon characters with mean streaks and a penchant for violence to some South American-born, European-based Renaissance Man who offers only fleeting glimpses into the deeper recesses of his hidden self.

Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KOs), who defends his WBC middleweight championship against three-division former titlist Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KOs) on June 7 in Madison Square Garden (the fight will be televised via HBO Pay-Per-View), by no means presents a simplistic, paint-by-numbers image. Perhaps that is because he does not speak English, his more esoteric thoughts filtered through a bilingual interpreter who feeds Cliff’s Notes versions of his responses to basic questions from American media members who, for the most part, wouldn’t know or care about the difference between Nietzsche’s treatises on the creative mental powers of the individual and the raw, destructive punching power of a Mike Tyson or a Rocky Marciano.

(Check out this insightful video of HBO’s Harold Lederman talking about the manner in whcih Sergio fights, and the upcomingscrap vs. Cotto.)

So at this point really knows what it is that spurs Martinez to continue torturing his oft-injured body to continually rise to the sort of heights that someday will bring him induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Is it a belief that his dedication to his craft is so absolute that he can will away the effects of multiple surgeries and other maladies that occasionally reduce him to near-handicapped status? Is it public affronts to his dignity that crop up more often than other champions of similar accomplishment?

But while Martinez’s motivation to keep on keeping on remains shrouded in intrigue, at least some answers will be provided on fight night, where certain truths are always revealed. Either Martinez remains one of the top four or five pound-for-pound performers in his brutal profession, his skills not noticeably ebbed by his advancing age or his litany of damaged body parts, or he will show himself to be on a steep downward slide that not even his steely resolve and once-formidable skills can brake.

For now, even Martinez and his handlers seem to be sending out mixed messages. Is Martinez – who again is living in Madrid, Spain, a shining jewel of European culture that seemingly fits his reserved personality more than did his dirt-poor hometown of Quilmes, Argentina, and his former U.S. residence in gritty Oxnard, Calif., as revived and refreshed as he claims to be? Or is he irrevocably damaged goods, soon to be brought down more by the relentless march of time and physical wear-and-tear than by the capabilities of a Cotto or any other high-quality opponents who may yet fill his dance card?

Listen to Martinez, and those affiliated with him, do the old two-step when asked about how the fighter’s lengthy layoff – he has not fought since scoring a unanimous, 12-round decision over England’s Martin Murray on April 27, 2013 – has affected him.

Martinez: “My knees are feeling great. I’ve been running in the morning, on the treadmill. I haven’t felt this good in a long time. I am the same that I was when there was no knee problems.”

Longtime adviser Sampson Lewkowicz: “If he’s not 100 percent, he’s 99 percent. He’s not 80 or 85 percent, or even 90 percent.”

Promoter Lou DiBella: “I believe his (left) knee is as good as it was before the (Julio Cesar) Chavez (Jr.) fight. I believe he’s in great shape. I saw him train in Florida and I was really pleased to see certain things I haven’t been able to see before some of his other fights, when his injuries were really bothering him. I saw great lateral movement. I saw able to plant his legs and throw with real authority and power. I think the year off to rehabilitate, to strengthen his body as opposed to taking a toll on it, is going to be a huge plus for Sergio, for his elbow, his hand, for everything that’s ever ached him.”

Yet …

Here is Martinez again, talking about that year off as something other than a needed vacation that presumably improved his health. In a recent interview with Lem Satterfield of ringtv.com, he admitted that, “It is not easy to prepare for a fight when you have some of the ailments that I have when preparing for a world championship fight. I struggle with joint pain, knee pain and shoulder pain. Because I train six days a week for an average of eight hours a day, I am always in constant pain. There are some days when I am so sore I cannot even walk, but I push myself because I know that I have to push myself to be the best fighter in the world.”

Even during this week’s teleconference with the international media, Martinez’s more optimistic references to his present physical condition were tempered by the acknowledgment that some things, when broken, are not so easily restored. “The rehabilitation was very painful,” he said. “I was on crutches for nine months. It was very hard to come back from that. I’m always coming back from some things like this.”

There are other “things like this” that Martinez has had to overcome, and will have to overcome against Cotto as well. It was noted by some reporters that Martinez, who almost always is at least somewhat complimentary toward his opponents, has shown a slightly more abrasive side of himself to Cotto, the popular Puerto Rican who has fought nine times in the big room at Madison Square Garden and filled the place each time. It is likely that again will be the case on June 7, when the Garden again will be a hotbed of Cotto partisanship.

In what cannot be viewed as anything other than a slap to boxing tradition, as well as to Martinez, Cotto, the challenger, will be introduced after the champion. And it isn’t the first time such disrespect has been directed at Martinez; it also happened on Nov. 20, 2010, when Martinez defended his WBC middleweight title in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall against Paul “The Punisher” Williams, who had defeated him via 12-round majority decision on Dec. 5, 2009, also in Boardwalk Hall. For the rematch, Cotto had to endure the indignity of being introduced before the challenger.

Martinez issued the most resounding of rebukes to that perceived slight, knocking Williams colder than a January night in Siberia with a perfectly timed left cross in the second round. So concussive was the force of that blow, which landed flush to Williams’ right cheek, that Williams pitched forward onto his face, not even attempting to break his fall. Referee Earl Morton didn’t even bother with the formality of a count.

“That punch,” said DiBella, who provides most of the tastier sound bites that the enigmatic Martinez is unwilling to dispense, “would have knocked anyone on earth out.”

The wipeout of Williams, coming on the heels of his one-sided points dethronement of WBC/WBO middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik, was enough to vault the previously little-known (at least in the United States) Martinez into stardom. He was named the 2010 Fighter of the Year by both the Boxing Writers Association of America and The Ring magazine.

“He’s the best pure athlete I’ve ever promoted,” DiBella gushed after Martinez had sliced up Pavlik’s bloodied face as if it were a very rare steak. DiBella also marveled that he was able to “discover” Martinez, who had been a competitive cyclist and soccer and tennis player in Argentina, in 2007 after several other American promoters took a pass on a fighter who had fought almost exclusively to that point in his homeland and adopted home in Spain.

But boxing stardom is not the same as superstardom, which seldom is based solely on talent. Between Pavlik, Williams II and now, Martinez has been egregiously stripped of his WBC title by the Mexico City-based sanctioning body’s president-for-life, the now-deceased Jose Sulaiman, who more or less handed that title to the son and namesake of Mexico’s all-time favorite fighter, Julio Cesar Chavez. His anger at that injustice – and make no mistake, it was an injustice – was on display the night of Sept. 15, 2012, in Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center, when he retook the WBC 160-pound that was rightfully his on a frightful beatdown of JCC Jr. The scores were 118-109 (twice) and 117-110.

But it was indicative of Martinez’s mindset, and the large chip he carried on his shoulder, that he was still trying to knock out Chavez in the 12th and final round. In doing so, Martinez was floored and badly hurt in the final minute of a bout he had been winning with ridiculous ease. Had there been another 20 seconds for Chavez to fire and land more desperation shots, Martinez might not have made it to the final bell.

“His (left) hand was broken, he got knocked down, his (right) knee was messed up, but he got up and didn’t look to hold,” DiBella said of Martinez’s refusal to play it safe when that was the more prudent course of action. “He looked to fight. Sergio Martinez is a man’s man.”

He is a man’s man with his let ’er rip ring style, but he is a thinking man’s man, too. In an interview with the New York Times, DiBella allowed that Martinez is “Cerebral. Sensitive. Very artsy. Likes fashion. Has his own sense of style, which is extremely Euro.”

In other words, the ruggedly handsome Argentine is as much a candidate to grace the cover of GQ or Time as a boxing publication. He is, as Winston Churchill once said of Soviet Russia in 1939, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” As such, he always seems vaguely inaccessible, a puzzle with many pieces, not so easy to figure out for the public’s convenience. Those who do not fit preconceived notions tend to stand out, but sometimes not in ways that guarantee widespread acceptance.

So this question was posed to Martinez, and to DiBella, who must have regarded it with a certain degree of incredulity: Does Martinez need to beat Cotto to gain “universal acceptance” as an elite fighter?

“He already has it,” DiBella said, likely with the understanding that some fights are not always won inside the ropes. Establishing a firm grip on a boxing buff’s undying devotion is not as simple as delivering a crushing left to the jaw. Nobody can really say they were drawn to Tyson because he is said to have read Machiavelli while he was incarcerated for his conviction of raping that beauty pageant contestant in Indiana.

Tossing around the heft of his popularity, especially in New York, Cotto sought concessions from the Martinez camp that went beyond who was to be introduced last. Some were of relative significance, others less so. The contracted weight limit demanded by Cotto, who has held titles at 140, 147 and 154 pounds and who had never fought above 154, was 159, one less than the middleweight limit. Martinez agreed to the demand, which he described as “annoying.”

“This was not an easy negotiation,” DiBella confirmed. “We kept having to call Sergio with more and more concession demands (from Cotto) that a champion generally does not have to give in to. He was not pleased. I think that came out at some of the press conferences. But I think he’s channeled that to his benefit. Right now he’s fixated with giving Cotto a beating and walking out of Madison Square Garden as the middleweight champion.

“Sergio wanted Miguel Cotto. He wanted this fight badly. He’s always wanted to fight in the big room in Madison Square Garden before he retired. In order to get that fight, we had to swallow some stuff we didn’t want to swallow.”

We shall see whether Martinez can make Cotto swallow stuff right back, most likely in the form of a ripping left that would put his antagonist down and out. But nothing can be certain at this point; not only is Cotto, 33, still very capable, but Martinez is a question mark given his age, his inactivity, the fact he has been dropped in each of his last three fights, and, of course, his laundry list of injuries: knee, hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder.

If Martinez is at near-peak efficiency – or if he can ignore the discomfort of his more chronically balky body parts – he should win. But saying, and wishing, that something isn’t so has never meant much when the determined guy in the other corner is trying his hardest to beat the mystery out of your enigma.

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Bernard Fernandez

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

Published

2 days ago

April 2, 2025

Arne K. Lang

History has Shortchanged Freddie Dawson, One of the Best Boxers of his Era

This reporter was rummaging around the internet last week when he stumbled on a story in the May 1950 issue of Ebony under the byline of Mike Jacobs. Boxing was then in the doldrums (isn’t it always?) and Jacobs, the most powerful promoter in boxing during the era of Joe Louis, was lassoed by the editors of the magazine to address the question of whether the over-representation of black boxers was killing the sport at the box office.

This hoary premise had been kicking around even before the heyday of Jack Johnson, bubbling forth whenever an important black-on-black fight played to a sea of empty seats as had happened the previous year when Chicago’s Comiskey Park hosted the world heavyweight title fight between Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jacobs ridiculed the hypothesis – as one could have expected considering the publication in which the story ran – and singled out three “colored” boxers as the best of the current crop of active pugilists: Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, and Freddie Dawson.

Sugar Ray Robinson? A no-brainer. Skill-wise the greatest of the great. Even those that didn’t follow boxing, would have recognized his name. Ike Williams? Nowhere near as well-known as Robinson, but he was then the reigning lightweight champion, a man destined to go into the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the inaugural class of 1990.

And Freddie Dawson? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, dear reader, you are not alone. I confess that I too drew a blank. And that triggered a search to learn more about him.

Freddie Dawson had four fights with Ike Williams. All four were staged on Ike’s turf in Philadelphia. Were this not the case, the history books would likely show the series knotted 2-2. Late in his career, Dawson became greatly admired in Australia. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves.

Dawson was born in 1924 in Thomasville, Arkansas, an unincorporated town in the Arkansas Delta. Likely a descendent of slaves who worked in the cotton plantations, he grew up in the so-called Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, the heart of Chicago’s Black Belt.

The first mention of him in the newspapers came in 1941 when he won Chicago’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) featherweight title. In those days, amateur boxing was big in the Windy City, the birthplace of the Golden Gloves. The Catholic Archdiocese, which ran gyms in every parish, and the Chicago Parks Department, were the major incubators.

In his amateur days, he was known as simply Fred Dawson. As a pro, his name often appeared as Freddy Dawson, although Freddie gradually became the more common spelling.

Dawson, who stood five-foot-six and was often described as stocky, made his pro debut on Feb. 1, 1943, at Marigold Gardens. Before the year was out, he had 16 fights under his belt, all in Chicago and all but two at Marigold. (Currently the site of an interdenominational Christian church, Marigold Gardens, on the city’s north side, was Chicago’s most active boxing and wrestling arena from the mid-1930s through the early-1950s. Joe Louis had three of his early fights there and Tony Zale was a fixture there as he climbed the ladder to the world middleweight title.)

The last of these 16 fights was fatal for Dawson’s opponent who collapsed heading back to his corner after the fight was stopped in the 10^th round and died that night at a local hospital from the effects of a brain injury.

Dawson left town after this incident and spent most of the next year in New Orleans where energetic promoter Louis Messina ran twice-weekly shows (Mondays for whites and Fridays for blacks) at the Coliseum, a major stop on boxing’s so-called Chitlin’ Circuit.

That same year, on Sept. 19, 1944, Dawson had his first encounter with Ike Williams. He was winning the fight when Ike knocked him out with a body punch in the fourth round.

The first and last meetings between Dawson and Ike Williams were spaced five years apart. In the interim, Freddie scored his two best wins, stopping Vic Patrick in the twelfth round at Sydney, NSW, and Bernard Docusen in the sixth round in Chicago.

The long-reigning lightweight champion of Australia, Patrick (49-3, 43 KOs) gave the crowd a thrill when he knocked Dawson down for a count of “six” in the penultimate 11^th round, but Dawson returned the favor twice in the final stanza, ending the contest with a punch so harsh that the poor Aussie needed five minutes before he was fit to leave the ring and would spend the night in the hospital as a precaution.

Dawson fought Bernard Docusen before 10,000-plus at Chicago Stadium on Feb. 4, 1949. An 8/5 favorite, Docusen lacked a hard punch, but the New Orleans cutie had suffered only three losses in 66 fights, had never been stopped, and had extended Sugar Ray Robinson the 15-round distance the previous year.

Dawson dismantled him. Docusen managed to get back on his feet after Dawson knocked him down in the sixth, but he was in no condition to continue and the referee waived the fight off. Dawson was then vacillating between the lightweight and welterweight divisions and reporters wondered whether it would be Robinson or Ike Williams when Dawson finally got his well-earned title shot.

Sugar Ray wasn’t in his future. Here are the results of his other matches with Ike Williams:

Dawson-Williams II (Jan. 28, 1946) – The consensus on press row was 7-2-1 or 7-3 for Dawson, but the match was ruled a draw. “[The judges and referee] evidently saw [Williams] land punches that nobody else did,” said the ringside reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dawson-Williams III (Jan. 26, 1948) – Dawson lost a majority decision. The scores were 6-4, 5-4-1, and 4-4-2. The decision was booed. Ike Williams then held the lightweight title, but this was a non-title fight. (It was tough for an outsider to get a fair shake in Philadelphia, home to Ike Williams’ co-manager Frank “Blinky” Palermo who would go to prison for his duplicitous dealings as a fight facilitator.)

Dawson-Williams IV (Dec. 5, 1949) – This would be Freddie Dawson’s only crack at a world title and he came up short. Ike Williams retained the belt, winning a unanimous decision. The fight was close – 8-7, 8-7, 9-6 – but there was no controversy.

Dawson made three more trips to Australia before his career was finished. On the first of these trips, he knocked out Jack Hassen, successor to Vic Patrick as the lightweight champion of Australia. A 1953 article in the Sydney Sunday Herald bore witness to the esteem in which Dawson was held by boxing fans in Australia: “None of our boxers could withstand his devastating attacks which not only knocked them out but also knocked years off their careers,” said the author. “It is doubtful whether any Australian boxer in any division could have beaten Dawson.”

Dawson had his final fights in the Land Down Under, finishing his career with a record of 103-14-4 while answering the bell for 962 rounds. Following what became his final fight, he had an eye operation in Sydney that was reportedly so intricate that it required a two-week hospital stay. He injured the eye again in Manila while sparring in preparation for a match with the welterweight champion of the Philippines, a match that had to be aborted because of the injury. Dawson then disappeared, by which we mean that he disappeared from the pages of the newspaper archives that allow us to construct these kinds of stories.

What about Freddie Dawson the man? A 1944 story about him said he was an outstanding all-around athlete, “a champion in all athletic undertakings – basketball, baseball, track and even jitterbugging.” A story in a Sydney paper as he was preparing to meet Vic Patrick informs us that he had two young children, ages 2 and 1, owned his own home in Chicago, and drove a two-year-old Cadillac. But beyond these flimsy snippets, Dawson the man remains elusive.

What we learned, however, is that he was one of the most underrated boxers to come down the pike in any era, a borderline Hall of Famer who ought not have fallen through the cracks. Inside the ring, this guy was one tough hombre.

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

5 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Ringside-at-the-Fontainebleau-where-Mikaela-Mayer-won-her-Rematch-with-Sandy-Ryan

LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

6 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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