William Zepeda Demolishes Maxi Hughes on a Flimsy Card at the Cosmo

William Zepeda Demolishes Maxi Hughes on a Flimsy Card at the Cosmo

Golden Boy Promotions was at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas tonight with a 5-bout card that was seriously dented when scheduled 10-round bouts featuring Marlen Esparza and Victor Morales fell out. Those in attendance didn’t get much bang for their buck as the 10 fighters on the docket answered the bell for only 23 rounds in the aggregate.

The main event, a lightweight affair between Mexico’s William Zepeda and England’s Maxi Hughes, lasted only four rounds. After a fairly even first round, Zepeda (30-0, 26 KOs) assumed control. The feather-fisted Hughes, with only five knockouts to his credit in 34 fights, had no antidote for Zepeda’s high-octane attack. At the end of the fourth, Hughes’ corner heeded referee David Fields’ advice and pulled their man out. In his last start, in July of last year in Shawnee, Oklahoma, Hughes lost a controversial majority decision to George Kambosos, but the 34-year-old Yorkshireman was out of his league tonight.

Zepeda entered this match ranked #1 by the WBC and #1 by the WBA. Shakur Stevenson (WBC) and Gervonta Davis (WBA) are the title-holders, whereas the other two sanctioning bodies consider the title vacant. Look for Zepeda to fight for one of the belts in his next start.

Semi-wind-up

In a messy lightweight skirmish, 21-year-old Floyd “Kid Austin” Schofield improved to 17-0 (12) when Esteuri Suero (13-2) was disqualified in the fifth round for low blows after the Dominican was issued numerous warnings for other unsportsmanlike doings.  This wasn’t the best showing by Schofield who had hardly lost a round heading in, but, as they say, a win is a win.

Also

A 10-round middleweight fight between Eric Priest and Jose Sanchez went the full “10,” but it was a monotonous affair. Priest, who hails from Overland Park, Kanas and is half-Korean, won every round on one of the cards and nine rounds on the other, but yet wasn’t impressive. In improving his record to 13-0 (8), he showed that he needs a lot more fine-tuning. This was his first scheduled 10-rounder. Mexico’s Sanchez (21-5-1) was stopped in four rounds by Vito Mielnicki in his last appearance in Las Vegas.

Six-foot-six cruiserweight Tristan Kalkreuth, who was recently profiled in these pages, improved to 13-1 (10 KOs) with a second-round stoppage of Tacoma, Washington’s six-foot-seven Marquice “Tree” Weston (15-3-1) who was out of action for four years before returning to the ring in October of last year.

Now being trained by Brian “BoMac” McIntyre, Kalkreuth sent Weston to his knees with a big left hook. Referee Raul Caiz deemed him unfit to continue and the bout was waived off at the 1:33 mark.

Joel Iriarte, a lanky welterweight from Bakersfield, California, won his pro debut with a first-round stoppage of Spanish southpaw Bryan Carguacundo (3-6-2). It was all over in 86 seconds.

Photo credits: Al Applerose

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