David Benavidez (30-0, 24 KOs) cruised to an unpopular 12-round unanimous decision over WBA ‘regular’ light heavyweight champion David Morrell (11-1, 9 KOs) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Morrell dropped a tired-looking Benavidez hard in the 11th round with a beautiful check right hook after beating the daylights out of him. Moments later, the referee penalized Morrell for hitting after the bell in a very, very odd-looking move.
The scores were 115-111, 115-111 and 118-108.
Benavidez was allowed to fight with his trunks pulled up to his ribcage, Fury-esque style, which looked blatant. It was surprising the referee didn’t instruct him to adjust them.
Results:
Former WBC/WBO super bantamweight champion Stephen Fulton (23-1, 8 KOs) outboxed WBC featherweight champion Brandon Figueroa (25-2-1, 19 KOs) to win a 12-round unanimous decision in their rematch in the co-feature bout.
Unlike their first fight four years ago in 2021, this one wasn’t close. Fulton has improved his game, outboxing and out-punching a sluggish-looking Figueroa. The judges’ scores were 116-112, 116-112, 117-111.
Given how boring this fight was, PBC should have placed it near the bottom of the card where it wouldn’t get as much attention because this was hard to watch. Fans had paid $79.95 for tonight’s event, and having a fight like Fulton-Figueroa was not good if the promoters wanted to keep encouraging people to purchase their events.
Light welterweight Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz (27-3-1, 18 KOs) fought well tonight, out-punching Angel Fierro (23-3-2, 18 KOs) to win a 10-round unanimous decision.
Cruz was on the attack the entire fight, landing hard power shots to the head and body of Fierro. The Mexican puncher, Fierro, answered back well with shots but didn’t have the same pop on his punches. The judges’ scores were 96-94, 97-93, and 98-92.
Junior middleweight Jesus Ramos Jr. (22-1-1, 18 KOs) had his way with former unified 154-lb champion Jeison Rosario (24-5-, 18 KOs) tonight, dropping him in the seventh round and battering him with punches in the eighth round to get the knockout.
The referee stopped it because Rosario, 29, was getting worked over by Ramos Jr. It wasn’t an entertaining fight, as Rosario looked gunshy, afraid to throw for fear of being countered by Ramos.
Featherweight Mirco Cuello (15-0, 12 KOs) defeated Christian Olivo (25-2-1, 9 KOs) by a tenth-round knockout in a fight he was losing. It was a wild comeback from the Argentinian Cuello, as he was behind on the judges’ scorecards going into round ten. He dropped Olivo twice with left hooks to the body.
The referee waved it off after the second knockdown. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:01 of round ten. Olivo had knocked Cuello down in the second round with a right hand to the head, and he controlled the action until the championship rounds.
A mistake on Olivo’s part was to focus on body shots at the expense of landing upstairs, as he’d done early on with his left hooks and right hands to the head of Cuello.
Cuello looked pretty beaten up at the end of the fight. His face was marked up and swollen from the heavy hooks that OIivo had landed.
Middleweight prospect Yoenli Hernandez 7-0, 7 KOs) dominated a tough but limited Angel Ruiz Astorga (18-4-1, 13 KOs), knocking him out in the fifth round with power punches. The referee, Al Huggins, pulled the plug on the fight as Ruiz was soaking up too much punishment from Hernandez along the ropes. The time was at 1:06.
Lightweight prospect Curmel Moton (7-0, 6 KOs) ate a ton of brutal power punches from Frank Zaldivar (5-2, 3 KOs) but came on to score a third-round TKO. Moton, 18, flurried on the Cuban Zaldivar with a storm of shots after backing him up against the ropes in the third. Referee Harvey Dock then halted the fight. The official time of the stoppage occurred at 1:51 of round three.
Moton is going to have to make a lot of improvements in his game for him to one day capture a world title. What’s worrisome besides Moton’s tiny 5’3″ and lack of defense is his weight. Unless he gets taller, he’ll be too small to fight at 140 or 147. For the casuals that though Moton will be the next Gervonta Davis, it’s obvious now that he’s not that type of talent.
