By Jim Dower: 36-year-old former IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck (31-2, 18 KO’s) defeated Bethuel Ushona (25-2, 8 KO’s) by an 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night to capture the vacant WBO Inter-Continental welterweight title at the Maribor, Slovenia. The final judges’ scores were 117-109, 117-109, 119-110.

After giving away the first round to Zaveck, Ushona really fought well from the 2nd through 5th round, badly outworking Zaveck. It was pretty one-sided during those rounds. Zwveck for some reason wasn’t letting his hands go with any regularity. He would come on near the end of the round to try and steal it, but wasn’t busy in the beginning or middle parts of the rounds.

In the 6th, Zaveck started landing hard power shots as he took the fight to the tiring Ushona.

Ushona lost one point in the 7th for attempting to headbutt Zaveck. There wasn’t much in the way of action that round for some reason.

In rounds eight through ten, Zaveck took command of the fight with his power shots and constant bombardment of the now tired Ushona. The referee took away another point from Ushona in the 10th for another headbutt attempt. It seemed kind of silly.

This was Zaveck’s first appearance since losing his International boxing Federation title to Andre Berto last September. Zaveck, #6 IBF, #11 WBO, wants to go after his lost IBF title now, which is currently vacant. However, he’ll have to take on the winner of the Mike Jones vs. Randall Bailey fight to get the title and that’s going to be tough for Zaveck to beat either of those guys.

Ushona lost for the second time. He was beaten soundly by Denton Vassell by a 12 round unanimous decision last year in March. The defeat didn’t seem to hurt Ushona’s rankings much, at least with the WBO, which has him ranked at #5 in the division.

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In other action on the card:

Denis Simcic UD 12 Fatjon Murati