Oscar Valdez knocked out Miguel Berchelt in the 10th round of the WBC super featherweight championship fight, on the undercard in the MGM Grand Conference Center bubble in Las Vegas.
Berchelt (38-1, 34 KOs) took the title by beating Francisco Vargas in a thrilling 11th round knockout in 2017 and defending the belt six times until he lost tonight.
Valdez (28-0, 22 KOs) is a former featherweight world champion who defeated Matías Carlos Adrián Rueda in 2016 to win the WBO tie and made six defenses in a row, including an epic bout with Scott Quigg in which Valdez suffered a broken jaw. in the fifth round, it ended the fight to win by unanimous decision. Valdez has gained weight in 2019 and has TKO wins over Adam Lopez and Jayson Velez at 130 pounds.
Valdez remains undefeated in championship fights.
Here all the results of the Berchelt-Valdez billboard:
Flores achieves an impressive knockout on Vélez
Gabriel Flores Jr. isn’t known for being a powerful puncher, but he proved it in the close of his junior lightweight bout on the Miguel Berchelt-Oscar Valdez undercard Saturday night at the MGM Conference Center in Las Vegas.
Flores (20-0, 7 KOs) dropped the hammer on Puerto Rico’s Jayson Velez (29-8-1, 21 KOs) and sent him to the canvas with a left hook in the sixth round, finishing with a bang along the ropes at 1:47. It was Flores’ first knockout in seven appearances since 2015.
The final set of punches apparently came out of nowhere. Flores was clearly winning, but he hadn’t shown much aggression. He enjoyed a visible speed advantage over Velez and used that speed to sting and counteract him effectively every time Velez got close.
That changed almost halfway through the sixth, when Flores Velez faltered with the left hook. Vélez could not hide the fact that he was injured, his whole body leaned forward and he fell to the canvas. He was back on his feet, but he was still off balance and seemed shaky, even as referee Tony Weeks resumed the action. Flores brought it back down a moment later, and that was it.
Velez, 32, came in with his back to the wall after taking back-to-back losses against Jaime Arboleda and Oscar Valdez in 2020. Valdez eliminated Velez on the 10th round of their fight in July.
For Flores, who fights in Stockton, California, it was the high-profile result he was looking for. Saturday was only the second scheduled 10-round fight in Flores’ career. He signed with Top Rank when he was 16 years old.
Falcao remains unbeaten at the expense of Akavov
Brazilian Esquiva Falcao maintained his impeccable record with a fourth-round knockout of Russian middleweight Artur Akavov.
Akavov’s corner halted the fight at the end of the fourth round, after he reported loss of vision in his left eye and an apparently broken nose to officers. It was an expected result, as Akavov (20-4, 9 KO’s) had become an easy target for Falcao’s second round punches.
Falcao (28-0, 20 KOs) calmly dominated the ring, putting his rival on the ropes and blasting him with stabbing combinations. Outside of an aggressive first round, Akavov’s attack basically ceased, he looked uneasy in response to Falcao’s punches against the ropes, and he rarely threw more than one punch at a time.
Falcao mixed his body and head shots well. Akavov routinely shook his head as if suggesting the blows wouldn’t come, but it was clear Falcao was efficiently exhausting him.
As an Olympic silver medalist in 2012, Falcao went 2-0 in 2020, exclusively in Brazil.
Rodríguez completes the course for the first time against Verón
Junior welterweight Elvis Rodriguez had to claim his first win on the cards on Saturday, although that may not have been the worst for his development.
The 25-year-old boxer achieved an eight round decision over Luis Albert Veron with scores of 79-73, 79-73 and 78-74. It is the first time that Rodriguez has completed the agreed bouts in his two-year professional career. Rodriguez (11-0-1, 10 KOs), who trains with Hall of Fame Freddie Roach, was initially patient with his more experienced opponent and started making a difference in the fifth and sixth rounds, dropping shots to the body and a clean right hook. He managed to hurt Veron (18-3-2, 9 KO’s) late in the sixth.
The power difference was visible early on and became more pronounced as the fight progressed. In the last two rounds, Veron’s face showed bruising and swelling under his left eye. It wasn’t the most brilliant performance of Rodríguez’s career, but it gave him valuable lessons and kept his record intact.
Veron has lost three times in his last four professional fights.
Zayas domina a Martin
One of Top Rank’s most esteemed prospects, Xander Zayas continues to make progress and now dominated James Martin for six rounds in their welterweight clash.
Zayas (7-0, 5 KOs), from San Juan, Puerto Rico, set the tone for the fight with strong left hooks to the body, followed by combinations to the head. Martin (6-2, 1 KO), a 23-year-old from Philadelphia, showed heart and deliberately reacted, but Zayas’ defensive skills proved just as impressive as his attack. Every day he slipped out of harm’s way and responded with punches in Martin’s stomach.
The 18-year-old welterweight failed to score a knockout for the first time in four appearances, but that does not detract from his performance as he received a large number of unanswered punches against the ropes towards the end of the fourth round and hurt. Martin with a right wing in the fifth, though he was never in serious danger of being knocked down.
Zayas, who signed with Top Rank at the age of 16, scored his second win in Las Vegas. This was his first appearance in the Top Rank bubble, having fought in Florida in the second half of 2020.
Martinez sends Wagner in the first round
Middleweight prospect Javier Martinez made quick work of Montana’s Billy Wagner, getting a TKO at 1:15 from the first round.
Martinez (3-0, 1 KO), 25, staggered Wagner (3-2, 1 KO), 28, with a right foot, who was declared knockout after Wagner was on the ropes. Moments later, Martinez landed another monster right and left in the center, then Wagner’s corner threw in the towel just as the judge stopped the fight.
Martinez’s win was the third in nine months.
First knockout for Rosario
Omar Rosario reached the first knockout of his professional career when he dropped Uriel Villanueva with a left hook to the body at 2:38 minutes of the second round, from a scheduled four round junior welterweight.
Rosario, (3-0, 1 KO), hailing from Puerto Rico and wearing the late Roberto Clemente’s number 21 in his shorts, landed right on Villanueva’s head in the first round, which was the best shot of the season. He fought, but he defined it with a constant body work that paid off in the second round when he forced Villanueva (1-1) to kneel twice before the fight was stopped.
Rosario, 23, turned pro in August 2020.
The rest of the billboard
Main (ESPN / ESPN +)
• Championship fight: Miguel Berchelt vs. Oscar Valdez, 12 rounds, for Berchelt’s WBC super featherweight title
• Gabriel Flores Jr. vs. Jayson Velez, 10 rounds, peso junior ligero