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Results and Recaps from Ontario Where William Zepeda KOed Giovanni Cabrera

Ringside Report by Special TSS Correspondent Raymundo Dioses…ONTARIO, CA — Lightweight heavy hitter William Zepeda dropped and stopped Giovanni Cabrera in round three in front of several thousand fans in the main event of a Golden Boy Promotions televised event live on DAZN from the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California.
Zepeda, (31-0, 27 KOs) was able to overcome a strong start from Cabrera, figuring out Cabrera’s style and eventually landing at will which led to the early rounds knockout.
“There’s not one individual that can handle my body shots. It’s something that me and my team have been working on,” said Zepeda.
Cabrera was active early on with lead right hands finding a home on Zepeda’s face. An uppercut jolted Zepeda in what was a first-round win for Cabrera after three minutes. The confidence continued from Cabrera who stood and traded with Zepeda in round two. An uppercut from Zepeda landed flush with a minute left in the second as Cabrera began to back up following exchanges.
Zepeda’s shots began to take effect in round three as an accumulation of punches landed on Cabrera, who is trained by Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach. Cabrera (22-2) went down from a combination and referee Thomas Taylor counted out the full ten-second knockout with Cabrera still on one knee. Time was 1:58 of round three.
“I want all the world champions. I’ve done all my homework, now it’s up to (promoter) Oscar De La Hoya to do his homework,” said Zepeda. De La Hoya responded in the ring on DAZN to Chris Mannix by naming all the champions in the lightweight division.
Zepeda, who hails from San Mateo Atenco, Mexico, is ranked No. 1 by the WBC, WBA and IBF and No. 2 by the WBO. Zepeda’s name his come up against the more known names in his division, with bouts against Shakur Stevenson and Vasyl Lomachenko discussed within the boxing world.
Zepeda defeated Maxi Hughes on March 16, 2024 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas via TKO stoppage in what was promoted as an IBF/WBA championship eliminator.
The Cabrera fight represented Zepeda’s third bout of 2024 and fourth straight stoppage win.
In June 2024 Zepeda signed a multi-year contract extension with Golden Boy Promotions. “There is no one more exciting or dangerous in the lightweight division than Zepeda,” said Golden Boy Promotions founder and chairman Oscar De La Hoya. “Every time out, he is a threat to either break a Compubox record or take out an opponent in the first round, or both.”
CO-MAIN EVENT
In a Mexico versus Puerto Rico showdown, Ricardo Sandoval (Mexico) overcame a strong start from Angel Acosta (Puerto Rico), adjusted to his opponent’s style and scored a last round stoppage win for the World Boxing Council’s Silver Flyweight title.
Sandoval, (25-2, 18 KOs) stayed on the outside while Acosta parried in and out of position early in the fight. Acosta landed a flush right hand to end the first three minutes of the bout. Another big right hand would land for Acosta in the second as the fight started to swing in the Puerto Rican’s favor. Round two ended with landed shots from both fighters.
A left hook from Acosta in the third wobbled Sandoval and Acosta continued to hit Sandoval while coming inside. A battle of attrition ensued in the fourth with the fighters looking to press the action.
In the sixth Sandoval landed a fan-friendly combination in what was his most effective round of the fight. The combinations continued from Sandoval who was turning the fight in his favor. Sandoval held an advantage in landed punches at 71-60 through round eight.
An unpopular stoppage came in at 1:23 of the final round as referee Raul Caiz stepped in following an uppercut thrown by Sandoval. Interviewed by DAZN and press afterwards, Sandoval said he welcomed a rematch with Acosta whose record fell to 24-5.
DAZN OPENER
Team USA member and prized prospect Joel Iriarte repeatedly tagged Yainel Alvarez in the opening round of their televised welterweight match. Punches landed in round one was 21 for Iriarte to 5 for Alvarez. An uppercut followed by a combination ended matters in round two at 2:41 via referee stoppage.
“I’m excited to keep on going… I was able to use all the tools in my toolbox. I want to remain active and keep on moving this year,” said Iriarte (3-0, 3 KOs) to assembled media in the locker room of his ambitious plan to fight five to six more times this calendar year.
Fighting under the guidance of renowned trainer Joel Diaz, Coachella Valley native Manuel Flores utilized a solid jab to set up his left hand against Nohel Arambulet in the super featherweight division. Flores picked up the activity in round two which led to two knockdowns and a stop of the action by referee Jerry Cantu at 1:59 of round two.
Flores, (18-1, 14 KOs) has now won his last three fights following his first career loss in June 2023 to Walter Santibanes. Arambulet falls to 23-7-2 (13 KOs).
“I give myself a B minus only because I didn’t get Arambulet out of there until the second round,” said Flores, who is planning on moving back down to the bantamweight division in his next outing. “I’m ready to dominate at 118 pounds, I’m going to go down and get the gold. I’ll fight anyone to prove I’m the best.”
UNDERCARD
SONORA’S CAMPA WITH UD OVER MARTIN
In a match-up of veterans, Pedro Campa gloved up against Chicago’s Alex Martin in a 10-round welterweight contest. The match was devoid of sustained action with the fighters clinching and feinting throughout the contest.
The scorecards had it 97-90, 96-91, 94-93 for Sonora, Mexico’s Campa (36-3-1, 24 KOs) with Martin falling to 18-6 (6 KOs).
CABRERA PRODUCES THIRD ROUND KO OVER SHIELDS
Sonora, Mexico’s Gael Cabrera notched a knockdown in round one and made opponent Mychaquell Shields take a knee at the end of round two in what resulted in a stoppage in the third round in an impressive performance from the featherweight southpaw.
Cabrera, (5-0, 3KO) threw haymakers at abandon which had effective results as Shields, (2-5) was unable to respond. Referee Raul Caiz waved off the contest at 1:09 of round three.
MORENO VALLEY LIGHTWEIGHT GARCIA DEFEATS BUENAOBRA
Joshua Garcia, (9-0, 4 KOs) defeated Jason Buenaobra via six round decision win in a six round lightweight lackluster affair.
A product of the Philippines, Buenaobra proved a difficult opponent who was hard to time and figure out. A combination finally softened up Buenaobra, (10-11-3, 4 KOs) in the second. The midway rounds were mostly uneventful.
The result from the judges was a majority decision at 58-56, 59-55 and 57-57.
ONTARIO’S SALDIVAR STOPS CANTO
Ontario, California native Anthony Saldivar, (7-0, 3 KOs) dominated Roman Canto over two lopsided rounds with the middleweight landing at will against his overmatched opponent. At fifty-two seconds referee David Sullivan called off the contest as Canto had no offense to speak of and was in danger of receiving unnecessary damage.
Saldivar was last seen at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California on April 4, 2024 where he notched a unanimous decision win over Henry Rivera.
VICTORVILLE LIGHTWEIGHT LUNA NOTHCES FIRST ROUND KO OVER WALKER
Daniel Luna scored an impressive first round knockout over Joseph Walker with three minutes of solid offense which led the referee to halt the fight from going into the second round. A left hook with a minute left in round one from Luna, (4-1, 3 KOs) shook Walker, yet the tough fighter from Forrest City, Arkansas clinched and recovered. When Walker got back to his corner once the round ended, referee Raul Caiz waved off the contest.
Luna is tall and lanky for a lightweight and moved and boxed well from the outside as well as when in close quarters.
SWITCH HITTING LLAMIDO WITH DECISION OVER ALLEN
The night of fist throwing began with featherweights Japhethlee Llamido and Ryan Allen in an entertaining eight round-bout as the fighters fought an even terms with plenty of action and offense from both combatants.
Llamido, (12-1, 4 KOs) switch hit, throwing punches from the orthodox and southpaw positions and scored a knockdown in round five. Allen, (10-8-1, 5 KOs) recovered well and in the sixth the Las Vegas native kept his hands busy in what was a great bounce back round.
End results were a unanimous decision win for Llamido at 78-73, 80-71 and 77-74.
Fighters in attendance: Arnold Barboza, Scrappy Ramirez, Alexis Rocha, Zab Judah, Oscar De La Hoya.
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.
Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.
Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)
Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.
The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).
Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”
A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.
Other winners:
Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon
Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney
Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire
Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix
The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.
The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.
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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.
He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.
Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.
“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.
“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)
Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.
During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”
He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.
He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.
On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.
Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.
If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.
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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.
No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.
“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.
Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.
Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.
In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.
That was a bad sign for Stanionis.
Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.
In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.
It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.
Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.
After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.
Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.
“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.
Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.
Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.
“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.
“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”
Other Bouts
Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.
The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.
“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.
Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.
Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.
Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.
In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.
“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”
In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.
“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”
After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.
Photo credit: Matchroom
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