Billed as “Guerra de Puertos” (Harbor Wars), Hefziba Eduardos Promotions presented an interesting World Boxing Federation (WBF) Championship twin-bill on Friday night, May 16, at the Gimnasio Oscar “Tigre” Garcia in Ensenada, Mexico, involving hard-hitting boxers in all-Mexican match-ups.
In a packed arena, WBF International Featherweight Champion Sergio “Micky” Lopez retained his title when challenger Ruben “Finito” Lopez was unable to continue due to a severe cut at 0:40 of the third round. It was anticlimactic, as a decisive result was expected.
Defending for the first time the title he won last October, 28-year-old Sergio Lopez improved his professional record to 18-7 (12), while “Finito” Lopez drops to 16-10-1 (14). “Micky” Lopez declared after the fight that he hopes to soon challenge for the WBF World title currently held by Ukrainian Timur Akhundov.
In the co-featured bout, WBF North American Welterweight titlist Javier Carrera, also making his first defense, lost his title to local man Mario “Rocky” Meraz, after ten rounds of high-paced back-and-forth action, where both fighters scored knockdowns.
Meraz was the better boxer of the two, connecting often with good combinations, while Carrera landed the more solid blows but rarely followed up on them. The deicision was unanimous in favor of Meraz: 97-92 (Andres Sandoval), 97-92 (Daniel Lopez) and 98-92 (Francisco Pacheco).
The new WBF North American Welterweight Champion took his impressive pro ledger to 20-3 (16), and the former titlist travels back to Puerto Penasco at 13-3 (10). Both boxers put on a great show for the jubilant fans at ringside, and it was clearly one of the best fights in Ensenada this year.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
