Miguel Berchelt made the step up to Lightweight for the first time stopping Eleazar Valenzuela in six one-sided rounds in Mexico City on Saturday.
The WBC Super Featherweight champion (38-1, 35 KOs) was pitched in with Valenzuela (21-14-4, 16 Koa) in a gentle 135 pound debut, and the gulf in class was evident almost from the opening bell, as Berchelt bullied his compatriot with hurtful shots.
Right on the bell in the first session, ‘The Scorpion’ unloaded three rapid fire left hands to head, body and then the final left hook landed Valenzuela on the deck.
The underdog survived the count, but the one way traffic was to show no signs of abating, as Berchelt gradually broke his man down with various combinations from his repertoire.
There was a strong case for a corner retirement at various junctures, but round six mercifully saw the end of the contest. Two right hands buzzed Valenzuela, and a spiteful follow up left hook had the Sinaloa native stunned, and as Berchelt moved in for the kill, the referee rightfully jumped in to wave the bout off.
To further drive home Berchelt’s dominance, he landed 63% of his power punches during the fight (201 of 321 punches) and 49% of total punches. Valenzuela only managed a mere 2% success rate on his jab (2 from 111 thrown) and only landed 37 punches in the fight in total.
After easily passing his maiden Lightweight test, thoughts turned to an all-Mexican grudge match, mooted for the Autumn against former WBO Featherweight champion Oscar Valdez (27-0, 21 KOs), who is the number one contender with the WBC.
“Every fan wants to see that fight, and we are ready for that war” said the 28-year-old post-fight.
“I felt great, but the altitude in Mexico City hit me a little bit. It’s not easy to fight here, but thank God we got the victory.
“Eleazar is a tough fighter, he endured everything I threw at him. He gained my respect.”
There were only three fights on the televised portion of the card, and 21-year-old Omar Aguilar (18-0, 17 KOs) continued his ruthless knockout form by halting Dante Jardon (32-7, 23 KOs) inside a round in a Super Lightweight attraction.
Aguilar threw a series of punches that had Jardon backing up, and a hard right caused him to stagger.
The sheer volume of punches forced the referee to make an intervention, with Jardon still on his feet at the time of the stoppage.
At Super Bantamweight, Alan David Picasso (14-1, 5 KOs) dominated for the majority of his encounter with Florentino Perez (14-6-2, 9 KOs), winning an eight round unanimous decision which featured no less than six judges, three located in the arena, and three scoring the bout remotely.
This would have been the case for the two fights at the head of the card, but none were required. Three scores of 80-72 were followed by scores of 79-73, 79-74 and 78-74 to confirm the win for Picasso, who showed a good variety of punches.
Elsewhere, Rafael Espinoza moved to (15-0, 12 KOs) with a second round win against Luis Guzman (8-15, 1 KO) at Featherweight, and Ruben Aguilar (10-0, 7 KOs) defeated Emanuel Herrera (7-11, 1 KO) over six at Super Lightweight by scores of 60-54, 59-55 and 59-56.
