By Vince D’Writer: Rising undefeated junior middleweight contender Xander Zayas passes his latest test in the squared circle, as he defeats Alexis Salazar (24-5, 9 KOs) by way of unanimous decision on December 10 at Madison Square Garden.
Zayas has reached the point of his career where every time he steps inside the ring, it should be against a step-up type of opponent. The 20-year-old Zayas is steadily moving up the rankings, and his fanbase is very hopeful in regards to Zayas becoming the next Puerto Rican world boxing champion.
In the opening round of the fight, Zayas immediately established his offense by using his jab and going to the body of his opponent. Zayas hit Salazar with a sweeping left hook that sent his opponent stumbling back into the ropes, but the referee didn’t call it a technical knockdown.
In rounds two through four Zayas was leveling up by using the jab to the body, and finishing his combinations up top to the head. He continued to out work his opponent in round five, but Salazar was more offensive minded in round six.
Salazar spent the majority of the sixth round standing in the pocket and trading shots with Zayas. During the course of the sixth round every time Zayas landed a combination, Salazar would return fire, and throw a combination of his own.
The sixth round would end up being the only round that Zayas didn’t outwork Salazar, as the CompuBox tallied their punches landed as 14 to 14. The eighth and final round was an action packed round as both Zayas and Salazar were willing to stand in the center of the ring and go toe to toe with each other.
Zayas had a solid performance as it appeared as though he may have won all but one round. Unlike his other fights, Zayas didn’t look very sharp on defense, but that could have been due to Alexis Salazar’s experience and style of fighting.
In the end Xander Zayas (15-0, 10 KOs) remains unbeaten as he earned a unanimous decision victory by the scores of 80-72, 79-73, and 79-73. Zayas collected his third victory of the year, but during his post-fight interview he admitted that he and his head trainer Javiel Centeno have work to do.
“I got to go back and see this fight, but they told me that I looked good. There were a couple of moments where I let down my defense, but I give myself a nice B+.”
Zayas would go on to state, “Little by little we keep improving, keep getting better, but I feel we can still work a little bit on everything. My distance, my punch output, my defense, my angles, everything. I feel like we can improve on everything.”