By Jim Dower: Mexican slugger Antonio Lozada (39-3, 33 KOs) took advantage of previously unbeaten Felix Verdejo’s ring rust to defeat him by a 10th knockout in a scheduled 10 round fight on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Lozada, 27, came into the fight as a heavy underdog, but he proved a lot of boxing fans and bettor’s wrong tonight in knocking down Verdejo (23-1, 15 KOs) in the 10th round. When the 24-year-old Verdejo got back to his feet, Lozada landed more shots that led to the referee Eddie Claudio stopping the fight. It was stopped at 2:37 of round 10.
Verdejo and his handlers at Top Rank made the mistake of picking a fighter a little too good for him to fight off a 1-year layoff from boxing. Lozada put a lot of pressure on the Puerto Rican star Verdejo all night long, and he wore him down with his heavy shots.
With this loss, Verdejo needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out how he can come back from this. From 2012 to 2015, Verdejo’s career was humming along nicely. He looked like a future star with his many knockouts. Verdejo‘s boxing skills had his promoters at Top Rank thinking he was going to not only capture a world title at 135, but also become a huge star capable of winning titles at 140 and 147.
Verdejo seemed to lose interest in boxing in 2016, as the fights were no longer easy ones for him. Verdejo struggled first against the lanky 6’1” William Silva in February 2016. Verdejo then had problems beating Oliver Flores last year in February in winning a questionable 10 round unanimous decision. That fight showed that Verdejo was going to have problems when he was eventually matched against better opposition. Verdejo’s promoters at Top Rank took a gamble of putting him in with Lozada tonight, and that turned out to be a huge blunder on their part. Verdejo was not ready for the tough pace that Lozada put him under in the fight, and he quickly fell apart.
Michael Conlan vs. David Berna – Results
2016 Olympian Michael Conlan (6-0, 5 KOs) defeated David Berna 15-3, 14 KOs) by a 2nd round knockout. The fight was halted at 1:00 of round 2. Conlan dropped Berna with a hard shot to the midsection in round 1. In the second round, Conlan knocked Berna down with a left hook to the head. When Berna got back to his feet, Conlan landed some nice shots that led to the referee jumping in and stopping the fight a tad bit prematurely. It didn’t matter. Berna wasn’t going to make it out of the round.
Undefeated featherweight contender Christopher Diaz (23-0, 14 KOs) looked sharp in beating Braulio Rodriguez (19-3, 17 KOs) by a 4th round stoppage. Rodriguez was dominated from start to finish. He suffered a shoulder injury and couldn’t. The official time of the stoppage was at 0:28 of round 4.
Former IBF super featherweight champion Jose Pedraza (23-1, 12 KOs) defeated Jose Luis Rodriguez (26-12-1, 14 KOs) by an 8 round unanimous decision. The scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72. Petdraxa is still trying to come back from his loss to Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.
Unbeaten lightweight prospect Joseph Adorno (6-0, 6 KOs) destroyed Ivan Gil de Lamadrid (3-3, 0 KOs) by a 1st round knockout. The time of the stoppage was at 2:01 of round 1.