Argentine welterweight prospect Fabian Maidana had multiple cause to hunt revenge in opposition to Mexico’s Francisco Mercado. And hopefully the results of their combat final Saturday evening at Buenos Aires’ Argentine Boxing Federation Stadium will present simply sufficient closure to depart their rivalry behind as soon as and for all.
Maidana stopped Mercado with a brutal, textbook hook to the liver within the rematch of their weird first conflict that came about in Mexico in 2021, a combat that ranks excessive amongst the largest freeway robberies of the brand new century.
Combating with a way of objective and decided to flip the script on those that doubt the ending expertise that turned his brother Marcos right into a boxing people hero, Maidana went to work from the primary bell attempting to keep away from Mercado’s soiled techniques and uncontrolled onslaughts, counterpunching superbly and urgent the motion every time attainable.
Halfway via the second episode, Maidana selected to combat hearth with hearth, unleashing a kind of basic left hooks to the midsection which have grow to be a trademark of Mexican boxing. His foe acknowledged the facility and the proper location of the punch by falling down backwards and never getting up till referee Gerardo Poggi reached the rely of ten.
EN REVANCHA, TNT MAIDANA NOQUEÓ A FRANCISCO MERCADO Y SE CONSAGRÓ NUEVAO CAMPEÓN FEDELATIN
Peso wélter / 10 rounds
🏆 Título Fedelatin WBA✅ Fabián Maidana (23-3-0, 17 KOs) KOT2 a Francisco Mercado (8-5-0, 3 KOs)
📌 Árbitro: Gerardo Poggi pic.twitter.com/KmiOhrsodX— Boxeo de Primera (@BoxeoDePrimera) October 27, 2024
The combat was halted with 40 seconds left within the second spherical, and thus Maidana improved to 23-3 with 17 knockouts whereas Mercado heads again residence with a 8-5 (3 KOs) ledger.
Their first conflict, which came about on Dec. 17, 2021 in Mexico, was marked by all types of unlawful punches and techniques by Mercado, a late alternative in a combat that was alleged to function a showcase for the then-once overwhelmed Maidana.
After quite a few warnings and dozens of unlawful punches together with elbows and low blows, Mercado lastly linked with a headbutt that triggered a minimize on Maidana’s proper eyebrow, prompting referee Alejandro Guel Lomeli to halt the competition and disqualifying Mercado verbally on the ring within the seventh spherical.
Minutes later, with Guel Lomeli holding each fighter’s arms for the official announcement, a set of scorecards had been learn by the ring announcer to the shock of the complete viewers, with one choose calling it 58-58 and the remaining two playing cards being 57-56, one for every fighter.
The combat was thus referred to as a draw, however the bizarreness of the entire thing would hardly cease there, because the combat was then “revised once more” sooner or later and awarded to Mercado in a unanimous technical choice. It’s nonetheless listed in BoxRec as a loss to Maidana.
Earlier within the card, Sol Cudos stopped Colombian highway warrior Johana Zuñiga in 5 rounds in an atomweight conflict. Cudos dominated the complete bout and overwhelmed her foe till referee Ruben Figueroa halted the bout as Zuñiga gave the impression to be defenseless following a barrage of punches.
In one other ladies’s bout, former champ Anahi Sanchez scored a unanimous choice win over Erica Alvarez in a ten-round junior welterweight conflict. Earlier on, Silio Vilte remained unbeaten with a stoppage win in 5 rounds over Jonathan Area in a junior welterweight contest.
Diego M. Morilla has been writing for The Ring since 2013. He has additionally written for HBO.com, ESPN.com and plenty of different magazines, web sites, newspapers and shops since 1993. He’s a full member of the Boxing Writers Affiliation of America and an elector for the Worldwide Boxing Corridor of Fame. He has gained two first-place awards within the BWAA’s annual writing contest, and he’s the moderator of The Ring’s Ladies’s Scores Panel. He served as copy editor for the second period of The Ring en Español (2018-2020) and is at the moment a author and editor for RingTV.com.
