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Middleweight Julio Cesar Chavez Jr and super bantam Nonito Donaire were in action last night, lighting up the Alamodome in San Antonio, TX with victories over opponents Marco Antonio Rubio and Wilfredo Vasquez Jr, respectively.
Chavez was placing his WBC crown at risk for the second time since winning the belt from Sebastian Zbik in June while knockout artist Rubio was coming off ten straight wins since a failed bid to take the WBC and WBO titles from Kelly Pavlik three years ago.
After a reportedly troubled training camp, Chavez, 25, looked to be headed into a difficult bout as he was facing his most accomplished foe to date, 31 year old fellow Mexican Rubio, who had produced 46 KO’s on his record going into the bout.
Against such a big puncher, Chavez had been expected to box but instead, the Culiacan resident went toe-to-toe with the challenger for nearly the entire bout.
The early rounds saw little feeling out process on display and soon the bout had turned into a body shot war as both combatants were content to stay in the trenches and trade leather.
By the middle rounds, Chavez was the more accurate puncher and started to distance himself from Rubio, who was busier but lacked focus and couldn’t hurt the younger fighter.
The later rounds saw the fighters locked in close quarters, trading punches between rest periods with Chavez scoring the higher quality work.
When the bell finally ended the struggle after 12 rounds, Chavez, 45-0-1 (31), was awarded the victory by margins of 118-110, 116-112 and 115-113 over Rubio, 53-6-1 (46).
After winning full or interim world titles at flyweight, super fly and bantamweight, Nonito Donaire stepped up to 122 pounds to face ex-WBO super bantam king Wilfredo Vazquez Jr for Vazquez’s old belt, which was currently vacant.
Donaire was the boss during the first few rounds, setting the pace and edging his Puerto Rican rival in quickness, lashing Vazquez with both hands in impressive fashion.
However, Donaire injured his left hand and as a result was not as active in the ensuing rounds, allowing Vazquez to pick up some needed points. The middle frames saw Vazquez land with a steady left jab punctuated by right hands through the defense of Donaire.
Despite the injury, Donaire broke the fight wide open in the ninth when he used a left uppercut, left hook combination to drop Vazquez, who was shaken but beat the count.
Behind on points, Vazquez went after Donaire, looking for a big punch to either finish off the Filipino or produce a knockdown but the Bayamon man achieved neither.
Donaire largely counter-punched his way through the rest of the bout, outboxing his determined rival in the final round.
The scoring was split amongst the three judges with Donaire taking two cards 117-110 and Vazquez winning the third 115-112.
The vacant WBO crown goes to Donaire, who sees his record to 28-1 (18), having won 27 consecutive contests while Vazquez drops to 21-2-1 (18), with both losses coming in world title bouts.
Also appearing at the Alamodome were light middle contender Vanes Martirosyan, 32-0 (20), who halted 41 year old Troy Lowry, 28-12 (17), in the third and welterweight prospect Wale Omotoso, 21-0 (18), who stopped Nestor Rosas, 11-3 (7), in the sixth.
