Brandon Figueroa TKO-7 Luis Nery
Tonight’s Showtime main event largely lived up to Carson, CA standards with a fast-paced action fight between titleholder Luis Nery and Brandon Figueroa before Figueroa ultimately scored the stoppage to win the WBC and WBA ‘regular’ world title. Nery actually got off to a fast start in this fight, finding his range early and often which Figueroa made easy by his style of fighting which favors getting in close and letting his hands fly.
For the first half of the fight Nery was largely in control of the fight, but in the seventh round things took a dramatic change as Nery started having trouble maintaining the pace of the fight and during an exchange Figueroa landed a well-placed left hand to the body which put Nery down and unable to beat the 10-count.
BLH had Nery up 58-56 on the scorecard at the time of stoppage with the three official judges split, but none of that mattered as Figueroa managed to score the stoppage at the 2:18 mark of Round 7.
With the win Figueroa (22-0-1, 17 KOs) now has the stage set for a unification fight against fellow champion Stephen Fulton. The pair have had a war or words brewing for some time now and will finally get to settle things in the ring. Nery (31-1, 24 KOs) has to go back to the drawing board.
Danny Roman UD-10 Ricardo Espinoza
Tonight’s co-feature had super bantamweight Danny Roman (29-3-1, 10 KOs) had an action-packed fight against Ricardo Espinoza (25-4, 21 KOs) who clearly didn’t come to back down. Espinoza started the fight with a furious pace that actually game Roman some trouble in the early rounds, but as the fight wore on Roman would get his timing down and start pulling away with his more accurate counter shots.
Down the stretch Roman started to really find the rhythm with his left uppercut which started to really bust up Espinoza’s face, which made an even further impression with the judges. At the end of the 10 rounds of action the three official judges turned in scores of 97-93, 98-92, and 98-92. BLH also scored the fight 98-92 for Roman.
In the post-fight interview Roman said he’s ready for another world title opportunity and said he’d like a chance to fight the Nery-Figueroa winner.
Xavier Martinez UD-10 Juan Carlos Burgos
In the Showtime opener junior lightweight Xavier Martinez (17-0, 11 KOs) and Juan Carlos Burgos (34-5-2, 21 KOs) set the tone for the night, slugging it out for 10 full rounds of action. Burgos would start the fight aggressively, stalking Martinez, but that ultimately left him susceptible to Martinez’s sharp counter punching. As the fight wore on the became clear that Burgos — while completely game for a war — just couldn’t consistently keep pace with the accuracy of Martinez.
When it was all said and done all three official judges turned in identical scores of 99-91 for Martinez, although it should be noted that the fans in attendance booed the decision (which I think was more because it was perhaps wider than some might’ve expected). BLH scored the fight 98-92 in favor of Martinez.