ABNER MARES DEFEATS ANSELMO MORENO IN L.A., CHALLENGES NONITO DONAIRE
By Dong Secuya
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 11 Nov 2012
LOS ANGELES -- Panamian Anselmo Moreno's famed boxing skills and finesse ran into an irristible force called Abner Mares as the Panamanian suffered his first defeat in 10 years and his first knockdown in his entire careeer as the undefeated Mares retained his WBC super bantamweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision in front of a raucous pro-Mexican crowd at the Staples Center Saturday night. Scores were 116-112 twice and 120-106 all for the Montebello, CA based Mexican-American.
Mares (25-0-1, 13KO) dominated Moreno in the first six rounds of the fight as Mares chased Moreno all over the ring and connecting with combinations sending the Panamanian to the canvas towards the end of the fifth round. Moreno however got his bearings in the 7th round where he hit Mares with some solid counters in the head as Mares showed signs of being tired. A dramatic turn of events happened in the 8th round when Moreno cornered Mares in the ropes and put Mares in trouble but Mares wheatered the storm and came back strong towards the end of the round. Moreno continued to tag Mares in the 9th but Mares showed his warrior's heart and came back strong in he last three rounds of the fight.
"I made him uncomfortable," Mares said after the fight when asked how he fought Moreno. When asked if he wants to fight Leo Santa Cruz, who earlier won his fight over Victor Zaleta, Mares said he "wants to fight Donaire." The Mares-Donaire fight is the fight that everybody is talking about. However, the fight may be difficult to make since Golden Boy and Top Rank, Mares's and Donaire's respective promoters, are not in a working relationship, to put it mildly.
FEATURED UNDERCARDS
Undefeated Mexican Leo Santa Cruz retained his IBF bantamweight title by mauling game challenger Victor Zaleta of El Paso, TX sending Zaleta three times into the canvas en route to a 9th round knockout victory.
Santa Cruz (22-0-1, 13KOs) connected 342 punches out of 839 punches thrown to Zaleta's 164 connect out of 630, to completely dominate Zaleta (20-3-1, 10KO) who went down towards the end of the 4th round, the 7th round and finally the 9th round. The judges' scores at the end of the 8th round were 80-70 twice and 79-71 all in favor for Santa Cruz.
Popular Mexican Junior Middleweight Alfredo Angulo (21-2-0, 18KOs) made short work of Raul Casarez (19-3-0, 9KOs) via first round knockout at the Staples Center Saturday night.
Angulo, who made his first comeback fight in the United States after after more than two years of absence due an immigration problem, connected with a picture perfect left cross to the chin of Casarez who went down and failed to beat the count. Time of stoppage is 56 seconds of the first round.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Dong Secuya.
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