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Prograis Skirts by Zorrilla in New Orleans; A Shocker on the Undercard

Whether it was hometown jitters or a phantom knockdown, Regis Prograis chased Puerto Rico’s Danielito Zorrilla and escaped with a split-decision victory to retain the WBC super lightweight title in New Orleans on Saturday.
Now on to the marquee fights.
For the first time in nearly five years Prograis (29-1, 24 KOs) fought in his hometown but discovered Zorrilla (17-2, 13 KOs) was not willing to serve as dessert for fans at the Smoothie King Center.
In the opening frame Zorrilla struck first with a sneak lead right that seemed to drop Prograis. But as the Puerto Rican fighter charged forward to follow up, he was wrapped up and tackled down. It appeared later on replay that it could have been declared a knockdown.
Even Prograis admitted as much. It was also the reason he hesitated to attack with his usual abandon after absorbing the Boricua’s sizzling right.
“I know he had the right hand, he caught me with it,” said Prograis.
Despite fearing Zorrilla’s right, the New Orleans native resumed attacking the taller and rangier fighter. In the third round Prograis connected with a long overhand left and down went Zorrilla on his back.
Zorrilla recovered quickly and began moving to his right for the remainder of the fight.
Fighting mainly in a counter-puncher mode, Zorrilla dared Prograis to enter the fire zone. And when it happened that sneak right and left hook awaited the local hero. And when Prograis connected, Zorrilla jumped on his scooter and moved around the ring until the last several seconds. Then he would connect with a right or left from long range and win the round as he did in the fifth.
It drew boos from the crowd, but it was the strategy used for most of the title fight.
“We chose Zorilla. We chose him because we thought he came to fight.,” said Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn. “He just ran. He never tried to win the fight.”
Though never anxious to engage, the threat of Zorrilla’s big right hammer kept Prograis from charging recklessly.
The last three rounds were the same as the earlier rounds with Prograis trying to get into range to score with power blows. Zorrilla never allowed more than a combination or two until the fight ended.
After 12 rounds one judge scored it for Zorrilla 114-113, but two others saw Prograis the winner by scores of 118-109 and 117-110. Prograis keeps the WBC title and now can face one of many marquee fighters available such as Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia, Teofimo Lopez or others.
“Like I said, it was a tough win. But just to see all my people out there I’m glad I brought it back here,” said Prograis. “Now I got to go back and work on some things.”
Julissa Guzman Shocks Ramla Ali
In a battle for a regional WBA super bantamweight title Mexico’s Julissa Guzman (13-2-2, 7 KOs) knocked out England’s Ramla Ali (8-1, 2 KOs) in the eighth round. It was a shocking upset for the previously undefeated former Olympian.
Ali’s team had arranged for her to fight the current WBC super bantamweight titlist Yamileth Mercado, if she won. Instead, it was Guzman who already fought the champion years ago and lost by decision.
Guzman suffered a fractured right forearm during her battle for the title against Mercado and fought until the end. But the injury put her on the shelf for two years. She returned to the prize ring last month and won by knockout. She was signed to face Ali on four weeks notice. It was plenty of time.
Ali had a speed advantage and used it wisely for the first two rounds. But it was evident that Guzman was using those rounds to gauge the timing of the Somalia native. Though she was absorbing combinations from Ali she was able to connect sporadically.
Everything turned around in the third round as Guzman connected multiple times with right hand counters that bounced off the noggin of Ali. The punches shook her legs.
Guzman dominated the fourth round with right after right. Ali tried to stand her ground but was met with powerful blows from the Mexican fighter. It was not wise for Ali to fight toe to toe and her corner advised her to box.
Ali was winning the fifth round but boxing and landing pot shots. But toward the end of the round she attempted a combination and was caught in-between with another counter right cross and down she went. She got up but was obviously dazed.
After warnings from her trainer to stay in boxing mode, Ali won the sixth by fighting at distance. It was her best round but still caught a right that wobbled her.
Ali seemed shook and not clear-headed in the eighth round. She received instructions but seemed listless. As she jabbed and fired a combination Ali was caught with a left hook she did not see. Down she went as if shot and could not beat the count.
Ali reached out to the referee as if to help her up and was counted out by referee Keith Hughes at 42 seconds of the eighth round. Guzman was ecstatic. Ali needed time to recuperate.
Ginny Fuchs wins
US Olympian Ginny Fuchs (3-0) willingly fought always tough Indeya Smith (6-8-2) and used sharp jabs and angles to defuse the constant charges of the smaller fighter in an eight round super flyweight match. All three judges scored it for Fuchs 80-72 twice and 79-73.
Welterweight eliminator
Shakhram Giyasov (14-0, 9 KOs) won a listless 12-round snoozer against Florida’s Harold Calderon (27-0, 18 KOs) by unanimous decision 120-108, 118-110, 116-112. Few moments were entertaining.
Giyasov was content to land single shots and Calderon was unwilling to take chances. Fans booed the timid affair.
Lightweights
Lightweight Jeremy Hill (19-3, 12 KOs) was in a tight struggle against Mark Davis (19-2) and then turned on the aggression and caught the shorter fighter with a looping right that sent him dangling through the ropes. As soon as Davis untangled himself, he was met with a crisp three-punch combination. They all connected and Davis collapsed to the floor. The referee Terry Boudreaux did not bother to count and ended the fight at 1:29 of the fourth round in the battle between two Louisiana fighters.
Photo credit: Ed Mulholland / MATCHROOM
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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
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Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”
And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”
Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinoza’s third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.
The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.
The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.
Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.
Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.
A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.
In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.
Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.
Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.
In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.
Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.
Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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