Rafael ‘El Divino’ Espinoza (28-0, 24 KOs) held onto his WBO featherweight title with a 10th-round corner stoppage of fringe contender Arnold Khegai (23-3-1, 14 KOs) on Saturday night in the main event at the Arena Coliseo, San Luis Potosi, in Mexico.
Uppercuts Do the Heavy Lifting
Khegai’s corner chose not to allow him to come out for the 11th round due to his left eye being cut and badly swollen from the punishment he’d taken from the lanky 6’1″ Espinoza. A clash of heads in round seven caused a cut over Khegai’s left eye, in addition to significant swelling.
Espinoza had used his combination punching and uppercuts on the inside to dominate the much shorter 5’5″ Ukraine-born Khegai. In the seventh and the tenth, Espinoza went for broke, attempting to score a knockout of Khegai by attacking him with a flurry. It didn’t work.
The hand speed, power, and maneuverability of Khegai allowed him to last through the tenth round before being pulled out by his corner.
Early on, the referee warned Khegai for throwing rabbit punches, as he’d been looping his shots to try to reach the top of Espinoza’s head. He was forced to do that due to Espinoza’s height advantage.
Khegai’s Corner Hits the Panic Button
Khegai’s trainer warned him after the eighth round that he was going to stop the fight unless he showed him something. He responded well in the ninth and tenth, nailing Espinoza with big rights to the head that he took well. They were shots that would have hurt a lot of fighters.
The fight was wisely halted after the tenth by Khegai’s team because he was too beat up and far behind in the contest to allow the bout to continue.
Overall, it was a good performance by Espinoza. He showed the same high-volume work rate that had worked for him in his recent fights. On the downside, he was hit hard by Khegai frequently in the fight.
Fortunately for Espinoza, he didn’t get hit enough to wobble him like we’d seen in his first fight against Robeisy Ramirez. Still, tonight’s contest showed that sooner or later, Espinoza will get knocked out when he goes up against a big enough puncher because he’s too easy to hit.
Vargas Survives a Hard Night
In the co-feature bout, light welterweight Emiliano Vargas (16-0, 12 KOs) defeated veteran Jonathan Montrel (19-4, 15 KOs) by a tougher-than-expected 10-round unanimous decision. Vargas landed a textbook rabbit punch in round one, causing Montrel, 35, to take a knee.
Although he complained to the referee that he’d been hit with a punch behind the head, he allowed the knockdown to stand.
Montrel showed a lot of heart, trying his best to match Vargas with power shots to the body and head. In the last three rounds, Vargas gave up trying to knock Montrel out and just focused on winning the decision.
The scores
- 100-89
- 99-90
- 99-90
Delgado Scrapes Through Controversy
Lindolfo Delgado (24-0, 16 KOs) had to get up off the deck in the 12th to go on to defeat Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela by a controversial 12-round split decision in an IBF light welterweight title eliminator. The scores were 114-113, 114-113 for Delgado, and 114-113 for Gollaz.
Delgado was eating left hooks the entire fight by the more powerful Valenzuela, and he looked like the clear loser.
With the win, the Top Rank-promoted DelGado becomes the mandatory challenger to IBF 140-lb champion Richardson Hitchins.