In a hellacious twelve round battle, Oscar Valdez retained his World Boxing Organization (WBO) featherweight title and his undefeated record (22-0) against two-time title challenger Miguel Marriaga (25-2, 21 KO). It was a grueling war of attrition full of ebbs and flows with neither fighter backing down. The action culminated in tenth, a candidate for round of the year, where Valdez was seemingly hurt from a series of body shots and then banked himself out by producing a knockdown of Marriaga. Both fighters would see the final bell, as the Valdez ultimately won a unanimous decision (119-108, 118-109, 116-111). This scribe scored the bout 115-112 for Valdez.
On the undercard, Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez defended his WBO super middleweight title in a workman like shutout performance against Max Bursak. It was Ramirez’s first fight since winning the title against Arthur Abraham in April 2016. Bursak was deducted a point in the fifth and eleventh round respectively for excessive holding. Ramirez won via unanimous decision with academic scorecards 120-106 all around.
WBO super bantamweight champion Jessie Magdaleno destroyed overmatched Adeilson Dos Santos in the second round.
Former Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson made his professional debut outboxing Edgar Brito to a technical decision. The fight was stopped due to cut Brito suffered from an accidental headbutt and went to the scorecards with Stevenson winning on all judges’ scorecards 60-54.
Mahonri Mahones won a split decision over Francisco Santana.
Maxim Dadashev scored a third round knockout over Bilial Mahasin.
Alexander Besputin scored a knockdown in the seventh and won eight round shutout over Breidis Prescott.
Former Olympic gold medalist Fazliddin Gaibnazarov made his professional debut against Victor Vasquez. After suffering a flash knockdown in the first, Gaibnazarov punished Vasquez into submission and won via second round knockout.