Zou beats Valenzuela; Estrada defeats Viloria; Martinez decisions Magdaleno

By Boxing News - 04/06/2013 - Comments

shiming6By Chris Williams: Making his pro debut tonight, former two time Gold medalist for China Zou Shiming (1-0) defeated 18-year-old Eleazer Valenzuela (2-2-1, 1 KO’s) by a four round unanimous decision at the Cotai Arena, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China. The final judges scores were 40-36, 40-36 and 40-36.

Zou smartly out-boxed Valenzuela in each round, hitting with jabs, hooks to the head and right hands to to the body. Zou looked impressive in making Valenzuela miss with his shots. The only negative I could see in his performance was his lack of power. He wasn’t able to back up Valenzuela, although he did hurt him in late in the 3rd round with a hard left hand.

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In a shocking upset, fringe contender Juan Francisco Estrada (23-2, 17 KO’s) defeated WBA/WBO flyweight champion Brian Viloria (32-4, 19 KO’s) by a 12 round split decision. The judges scored the fight 116-111 and 117-111 for Estrada and 115-113 for Viloria. You have to wonder what fight the judge was watching that scored it for Viloria because he clearly lost the fight. Viloria was hurt in the 11th and especially in the 12th. With a minute to go in the 12th, Viloria was badly hurt from hard uppercuts from Estrada. Somehow, Viloria was able to back up against the ropes and survive the remainder of the round.

The 32-year-old Viloria just never seemed to get into the fight, as the 22-year-old Estrada had too much energy and was able to get the better of him in most every round. I had Estrada winning 117-111, so you can ignore the other scores because it was pretty one-sided. The interesting thing is Estrada was ranked #14 by the WBA, and he was considered to be a safe fight for Viloria by some. Instead, Estrada made Viloria look like an old man in beating him by a 12 round decision. I wouldn’t recommend that Viloria fight this guy again because he’s got too much youth and energy for Viloria.

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WBO super featherweight champion Roman Martinez (27-1-2, 16 KO’s) outworked challenger #1 WBO Diego Magdaleno (23-1, 9 KO’s) in handing him his first career defeat by a 12 round split decision. The final judges scores were 115-112 and 114-113, and 116-111 for Magdalena. It seemed like a pretty clear case for Martinez in winning the fight. Not sure what the judge saw in Magdalena’s performance to give him the 116-111 score because he was outworked and even dropped in the 4th round. Magdalena did come on a little big in the middle part of the fight, but he then gassed out in the last three rounds and was dominated by Martinez in rounds 10, 11 and 12. Thank god the other two judges saw the fight for what really happened because it would have been sad had Magdalena been given the decision. Before this fight, Magdalena had looked sensational against the awful opposition he’d been facing, but suddenly with him in with a good fighter, he didn’t look so great. He looked over-matched and you have to put the blame on his promoters for all the soft matchmaking they did for him to get him to this spot.

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In another surprise on the card, Yasutaka Ishimoto (22-6, 5 KO’s) pulled off a huge upset in beating former WBO super bantamweight champion Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. (22-3-1, 19 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 96-95, 96-93 and 95-94. Ishimoto knocked Vazquez Jr. down in the 8th round.

I had Vazquez Jr. winning the fight based on his harder punches, but it looked like the judges were more impressed with Ishimoto’s steady work rather than Vazquez Jr’s much harder punches.

Other boxing results on the card:

Milan Melindo TKO 4 Tommy Seran
Paul Fleming TKO 4 Ryusei Yoshida
Dodie Boy Penalosa Jr KO 3 Nimithra Sithsaithong
Dave Penalosa KO 2 Cheroenchai Sithsaithong



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