Danny “Swift” Garcia (32-0 18, KOs) remains unbeaten and is now a two-division world champion as he defeats Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (33-4-1, 18 KOs) to win an entertaining and tough twelve round unanimous decision victory to capture the vacant WBC welterweight championship which once belonged to Floyd Mayweather. The official scores at ringside were 116-112 X3.
With Mayweather sitting at ringside, Garcia got off to a slow start even giving up some early rounds to Guerrero’s fierce attack. Garcia turned the tide mid-way through the bout landing a power right hook in addition to his patented left hook. Garcia landed the harder, cleaner shots and flurried to win rounds while fighting backwards for most of the bout.
Guerrero dispelled the notion that he was a fighter on the decline as he took the fight to Garcia and left welts all over “Swift’s” body and opened up cuts under Garcia’s right eye and underneath his hairline. The difference in the bout was Garcia’s ability to counter “The Ghost’s” aggressive punches.
Guerrero started to get wild in the third round and that gave Garcia the opening to start landing crisp counters that stopped the southpaw Guerrero in his tracks.
Garcia found a huge advantage in the fourth round when his body attack slowed Guerrero down made him drop his hands. Garcia was able to slow Guerrero down and turned the tide of the bout for good.
Garcia left his hands go in the fifth and sixth rounds landing the combinations at will. Whenever Guerrero would mount an attack of his own, Garcia seemed to walk through the punches and answer back with his own power shots.
Guerrero came back in the tenth round and had his best round in a while swarming Garcia with a lot of pressure and at times mugging Garcia. Garcia did slow down and stopped throwing punches until right around the 30 second mark when Garcia would land very clear, hard shots to win the round.
Guerrero came out aggressive again in the final round fighting on heart and instinct while Garcia was backing up. When Garcia tried to throw Guerrero would smother Garcia not allowing him get off anything of significance. Referee Jack Reis separated the two combatants with 20 seconds to go in the bout and then all heck broke loose. Both Garcia and Guerrero went toe to toe with the entire building cheering on a la a Rocky movie. In the end though both fighters celebrated Garcia did more in the eyes of the judges to win the championship.
This was Garcia’s second foray in the welterweight division after stopping Paulie Malignaggi last August in Brooklyn. Now Garcia will set his sights either on his mandatory challenger Amir Khan or the winner of the recently announced Keith Thurman-Shawn Porter March 12 bout.
Army veteran Sammy Vasquez (21-0, 15 KOs) remained unbeaten by thoroughly dominating Aron Martinez (19-5-1, 4 KOs) and winning by six round TKO stoppage. Martinez was unable to continue after round six due to a left elbow injury. It’s unclear if Martinez injured the elbow in the fight or in training because Martinez was virtually inactive for much of the bout.
The undefeated Vasquez continues to step up the level of opposition in the welterweight division as came into the bout having beaten opponents with a combined record of 108-7-3.
Vasquez’s super-fast hands was giving Martinez fits in the early going as the combinations were blinding and stinging Martinez. The only chance Martinez has was when he closed the distance on Vazquez but that ended quickly as Vasquez was able create room and continue launching combinations at Martinez.
Vasquez did 2 tours of duty in Iraq and frequently suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder requiring him to see a therapist each week. Martinez is coming off a big 2015 by losing a controversial decision to Robert Guerrero and defeating 2 time world champion Devon Alexander.
With this win Vasquez is now in the crosshairs of a title shot.
In the opening bout of the telecast on Fox, American heavyweight Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) came back from being knocked down for the first time in his career to defeat Amir Mansour (22-2-1, 16 KOs) by fifth round TKO when Mansour was unable to answer the bell for the sixth round. The camera picked up the 43-year-old Mansour telling his corner that he cannot close his mouth. At the point referee Raul Caiz Sr. immediately called an end to the bout much to the chagrin of Mansour’s corner.
Breazeale, a 2012 U.S Olympian, was unable to use his height and reach advantage as Mansour came out of for the first round swinging for the fences and connecting. Both fighter took turns tagging each other in the first round. Breazeale landed the best punch of the round right at the bell stinging Mansour.
Mansour had a huge second round landing left-handed bombs hurting Breazeale several times in the round. The 6’7’’ former college quarterback Breazeale went down in the third round from a compact right hook by Masour. Breazeale got up but did not have his legs underneath him until the end of the round when he landed a straight-right hand to stop Mansour’s momentum. The fifth round was the most entertaining of the bout as both men traded explosive shots and buzzed each other in the middle of the ring. Breazeale landed the big right hand which is what caused the damage to Masnour’s jaw.
Breazeale remains unbeaten but it wasn’t easy as he looks to climb the heavyweight rankings. Doctors at ringside confirmed Mansour suffered a fully fractured jaw.
- Vladimir Lik / @VladimirLik
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