HBO Latino was in the building for Top Rank’s card on Saturday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, where Gilberto Ramirez and Oscar Valdez served as the co-headliners. Ramirez, of Mazatlan, Mexico, maintained his undefeated record and his status as a top contender in the super middleweight division by stopping Fulgencio Zuniga in the 8th round. He’s now 30-0 with 24 KOs on the ledger.
Also on the card:
- Two-time Mexican Olympian and undefeated featherweight knockout artist Oscar Valdez of Nogales, Mexico stopped Alberto Garza in the 7th round to remain undefeated at 14-0, 12 KOs.
- Casey Ramos won an eight round unanimous decision over Manuel Rojas.
- Ivan Najera won an eight round unanimous decision over Luis Cervantes.
Another card took place this weekend, hosted by Uprising Promotions, at the Five Star Banquet Hall in Long Island City, Queens. Wesley “El Bongocero” Ferrer (6-0, 4 KOs) kept his perfect record intact by shutting out William Walters (2-6, 1 KO) in a four round contest, but the night ended on a highly controversial note after a main event that saw Uprising Promotions featherweight Angel “El Gato” Luna (10-0-1, 7 KOs) battle Victor Serrano (3-7-1, 1 KO) over six frames to a majority draw.
In that feature bout, Luna showed proper ring generalship and served as the clear aggressor. From the onset of this fight, he ripped crushing shots to the body of Serrano, backing him up while throwing punches at an incredible pace. He continually swarmed his gritty opponent, delivering heavy volume with a focus on breaking down the body. Luna stalked Serrano throughout the six rounds of action, getting the better of exchanges but did eat some punches to give some punches on more than a few occasions.
While Luna did take some shots from Serrano, it was due to his own aggression, and he gave back much more than he received. When the bell rang at the conclusion of this one, the consensus among nearly everyone in attendance was that Luna had done enough to pick up his 11th professional win.
Unfortunately, the two people who saw this as a close bout were sitting ringside and had the opinions that mattered. The first score read aloud was a 58-56 tally in favor of Luna, but the crowd was left in disbelief when the next two cards were revealed as being even at 57-57, making this fight a majority draw.
Ferrer came into the night with four knockouts in his previous five professional bouts, and he appeared to be headed to another early stoppage after getting off to a fast start against Walters. He immediately went to work on the body, firing hard hooks with both hands and backing up his opponent with flush follow-up shots to the head. However, Walters proved to be very game opposition, and he survived the round to send Ferrer back to his father/trainer Mateo De La Cruz in the corner.
For just the second time in his career, Ferrer would see the second frame, showing some understandable signs of attrition as the fight progressed but never relinquishing control for a moment. When all was said and done, the Brooklyn native had put in four solid rounds of work with the highly durable Walters, working well off the bend while turning and stepping into well-placed combinations.
All in all, it was a good four frames of experience for Ferrer, who cruised to a unanimous victory by shutting out Walters on all three scorecards, 40-36.
