Carl Jammes Martin pulled off a major upset, lifting David Picasso’s WBC Silver featherweight belt by ten-round split decision. Martin beat the favored Mexican to the punches round after round, firing off crisp southpaw combinations that forced Picasso into an uncomfortably fast pace.
Picasso possessed the physical dimensions to manage the distance, but he failed to establish his range with enough conviction to keep the smaller man away.
A handful of frames hung in the balance, but Martin’s sharper, heavier punches commanded attention during the heated exchanges. Picasso had his moments, but his output steadily slowed, letting precious minutes slip away.
Martin maintained his intensity until the final bell, doing enough work during the championship sequence to convince two of the ringside judges. Moving up in weight against a seasoned competitor was a gamble, but the undefeated Filipino rose to the occasion and scored the highlight victory of his career.
A final round knockdown sealed Sultan Almohammed’s unanimous decision victory over Erick Jahir Urvina Villegas in a six-round super featherweight brawl. The 18-year-old Saudi prospect picked up the pace from the start, keeping the Mexican under constant pressure. Urvina Villegas (5-3-3, 1 KO) showed plenty of courage in hanging in there, forcing the teenager to log more time in the ring than he had seen in most of his early outings.
Almohammed (6-0, 4 KOs) dictated the terms with his hard work rate, even if he failed to find the knockout punch. Urvina Villegas deserves credit for remaining competitive while clearly being outmatched. The reversal in the sixth provided an exclamation point, erasing any doubt on the scorecards. For a young fighter accustomed to fast nights at the office, having to go through six tough rounds offered valuable development.
It took Bek Nurmaganbet less than three minutes to knock out Marcos Vázquez Rodríguez, resulting in a devastating stoppage that immediately earned DAZN a knockout candidate of the year.
The scheduled ten-round super middleweight contest was halted at 2:57 of the first period after Nurmaganbet dropped the Mexican veteran twice. The heavy artillery proved far too heavy, ending any hopes of a competitive showdown before it even began.
Vázquez Rodríguez had no answer for the Kazakh left-hander, whose laser precision sustained each of his early attacks. The 37-year-old veteran brought plenty of experience to the ring, but none of that mattered against that kind of concussive force. Vázquez Rodríguez was coming off a previous defeat, meaning more rigorous testing will ultimately determine Nurmaganbet’s true ceiling.
Yet the undefeated prospect did exactly what elite punchers are supposed to do, closing the show with a bang and stealing the show on the undercard.
Super middleweight Emiliano Rojo (22-0, 9 KOs) secured Mexico’s first victory of the evening, stopping Flavius Biea (24-4, 12 KOs) in the fourth round of a scheduled eight-round fight. The undefeated 20-year-old set the tempo from the first kick-off, regularly overcoming the Romanian veteran. Biea found himself stifled, unable to create space or find answers to the sustained pressure presented to him.
The referee ordered the stoppage at 1:37 of the fourth round. Rojo remained calm throughout, measured in his attack rather than recklessly seeking an early knockout. Biea entered the ring after suffering recent stoppage losses, so the victory revealed little about how Rojo might hold up against top competition. The young prospect took care of business exactly as expected, getting the veteran out of there with four rounds to spare.
Brayan León kept his perfect record intact by taking an eight-round unanimous decision over Hector Aguirre in a super middleweight bout on the preliminary card. The Cuban prospect took his record to 13 wins with nine knockouts, even though Aguirre made him work every minute.
León opened the rounds sharply before his tempo faltered, inviting the Mexican into a close fight. León repeatedly retreated to the ropes instead of occupying his opponent. Aguirre (7-1, 3 KOs) lacked the power to turn things around, but his relentless pressure prevented a dominant display. León walks away with the victory, but he clearly has some adjustments to make before diving into deeper waters.
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