Xander Zayas (22-0, 13 KOs) put on a Tom and Jerry performance, running & holding his way to a dull 12-round unanimous decision over Jorge Garcia (33-5, 26 KOs) to win the vacant WBO junior middleweight title on Saturday night at the Madison Square Garden Theater.
Fans at ringside were mostly quiet due to the movement and holding that Zayas was doing. These pro-Zayas fans looked uncomfortable with what they were watching. You can’t blame them because it was awful to watch.
It’s hard to believe that Top Rank has poured so much money into creating Zayas in an effort to make him into a pseudo-star. He’s terrible to watch, and he will beat any of the other champions at 154. They’d be crazy to try to match Zayas against the other champions.
The scores were 116-112, 118-110, and 119-109
Undercard results
Featherweight Bruce Carrington (16-0, 9 KOs) captured the WBC interim featherweight title, defeating Mateus Heita (14-1, 9 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision. The scores were 119-109, 119-109, and 120-108.
Carrington chose to box and move all night rather than slug it out with the harder-hitting Heita. He got caught with some big shots from Heita early on that made him realize that it wasn’t a good idea to stand and fight him. Heita followed Carrington around all night, hitting him hard when he would stop moving, and blocking a lot of the return fire from Shu Shu.
It wasn’t the impressive performance that Carrington needed to entertain his New York fans. Indeed, he made it boring with his approach. If the gold standard for entertainment at featherweight is WBO champion Rafael Espinoza, Carrington was more like the copper standard.
Light welterweight prospect Emiliano Vargas (15-0, 13 KOs) mowed down Alexander Espinoza (20-4-1, 9 KOs), scoring a one-punch first-round knockout. Vargas landed a perfectly placed right to the jaw of Espinoza, sending him down on the canvas. He was in no condition to get up, and the fight was promptly halted. The time was 42 seconds of round one.
Welterweight contender Rohan Polanco (17-0, 10 KOs) defeated the experienced veteran Quinton Randall (15-3-1, 3 KOs) by a wide 10-round unanimous decision. Polanco was missing badly while loading up on shots, trying hard to generate power to score a knockout. Not a big puncher despite his 10 knockouts, Polanco struggled with the boxing skills of Randall. The scores were 97-93, 100-90, and 99-91. It was a lot closer fight than the scores showed.
Super flyweight prospect Juanma Lopez De Jesus (3-0, 2 KOs) made easy work of Jorge L. Gonzalez-Sanchez (5-3, 4 KOs), stopping him in the second round due to a blown call by the referee. Juanma knocked Gonzalez-Sanchez down three times in the fight. Twice in round one, and the final in round two.
Referee John Murdock pulled the plug on the fight after Juanma knocked Gonzalez-Sanchez down with a cuffing right hand that pulled him down onto the canvas. The referee seemingly didn’t see the cuffing shot and waived off the fight. The time was at 1:14 of round two.
Featherweight Yan Santana (15-0, 12 KOs) dominated Aaron Alameda (30-3, 17 KOs), hitting him at will at times with shots to earn a one-sided 10-round unanimous decision. The judges’ scores were 100-90, 100-90, and 100-90.
