A special Saturday night edition of PBC on FS1 brought us a quick first round knockout in its featherweight main event. Dominican featherweight sleeper Claudio “The Matrix” Marrero (22-1, 16 KOs) put himself into serious contention with one right hand landing flush on the chin of previously unbeaten Peruvian Carlos Zambrano (26-1, 11 KOs) roughly half a round into the contest.
There is not much else to say about the fight. Zambrano circled and fired a little more aggressively than I had expected him to based on tape, but he didn’t really have much time to be himself at all as Marrero timed a classic one two that dropped Zambrano hard to the mat. The Peruvian featherweight seemed more in physical pain than wobbled, but he made no attempt to rise and was counted out. After taking his first defeat he seemed quite distraught, no doubt dismayed that his big American television opportunity ended in disaster.
The win gives Marrero a meaningless belt in terms of prestige, but it is a very meaningful win in terms of divisional positioning. He will now be in position to fight the winner of the ordered rematch between Abner Mares and Leo Santa Cruz, a tremendous, career altering opportunity regardless of who prevails. Even if he ends up waiting for a trilogy fight, as long as he doesn’t lose the minor belt he now holds he will get a chance to fight for the real WBA featherweight title sooner rather than later.
In the co-feature junior middleweight Nathaniel Gallimore (18-1, 15 KOs) took and won a middleweight bout against unbeaten prospect Jeison Rosario (12-1, 9 KOs) of the Dominican Republic. This was an entertaining fight in which Rosario definitely hurt Gallimore in the first round, but Gallimore was the better schooled fighter over time even if Rosario clearly could affect him with a single shot. Gallimore dropped Rosario three times in the sixth before the fight was waved off. He will be returning to the junior middleweight division.
