Unbeaten WBO world minimum champion Oscar Collazo defeated Gerardo Zapata in dominating fashion en route to a twelve-round unanimous decision in which he won nearly all the rounds on the judges’ three scorecards (119-109, 119-109, and 117-110) in this one-sided main event.
Collazo controlled the first round and half of the second until, out of nowhere, Zapata landed a hard looping overhand right hook that badly staggered Collazo with about a minute to go in the round. Collazo was in a great deal of trouble. Zapata, however, was unable to knock him down, as Collazo stayed out of Zapata’s punching range and tied him up several times for the rest of the round. This was Zapata’s best round of the fight and the only time that he connected on double-digit punches (12) in the fight.
He did not seem fazed at the start of the third round, as he immediately took control of the round and pressed the action. Collazo aggressively stalked Zapata around the ring and constantly had him backing up throughout the bout. He outworked and out-landed Zapata with stinging jabs, uppercuts, and multiple punch combinations to the head and body from both hands, from which Zapata had no answer.
Zapata remained in a defensive shell for most of the fight, as he did not throw many punches, especially in the second half of the fight, as he appeared to tire and spent significant stretches of the rounds lying on the ropes. He fought more aggressively in the twelfth round as Collazo took long stretches of the round off.
Collazo connected on more power punches. He landed a left uppercut in the third round that stunned Zapata. Collazo connected on a left-right hook that staggered Zapata in the fifth. He landed a right jab in the sixth round that pushed Zapata to the ropes.
Collazo landed numerous unanswered punches towards the end of the eighth and ninth rounds as Zapata lay on the ropes. He tried to end the fight in the last three rounds, connecting on several unanswered multiple-punch combinations. Zapata, however, did not go down and made it to the end of the bout despite taking a great deal of punishment. His face was marked up and red by the end of the fight.
According to CompuBox punch statistics, Collazo dominated Zapata in every statistic. He threw more punches than Zapata (741 to 453), landed almost four times as many punches (230 to 63), and had a better connect percentage (31 to 14). He also connected on nearly four times as many jabs (79 to 23) and more than three times the number of power punches (151 to 40). Collazo landed more punches than Zapata in all twelve rounds.
Collazo improved to 10-0, 7 KOs, and successfully defended this title for the third time, which pleased his fans, who loudly cheered him on and waved the flag of his home country, Puerto Rico. He won the WBO belt in just his seventh professional fight with a seventh-round technical knockout over Melvin Jerusalem in May 2023. Collazo successfully defended it against Garen Diagan and Reyneris Gutierrez via a sixth and third-round technical knockout, respectively. This was the first time in five fights that he did not knock out his opponent.
Zapata, ranked twelfth by the WBO, dropped to 14-2-1, 5 KOs. This was his first world title.
Golden Boy Promotions promoted this fight from Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York, during the International Boxing Hall of Fame weekend. It was televised live on DAZN.
Collazo told reporters after the fight that he wants to be back in the ring by September or October and continue to be active (he fought three times last year and twice in the first six months of this year). He wants to fight for a unification bout in the early part of 2025.
