Oscar Valdez and Zurdo Ramirez defended their belts Friday night on ESPN over Genesis Servania and Jesse Hart respectively. Somewhat surprisingly, all four fighters came out of the night looking reasonably good. This was an entertaining show through and through.
Genesis Servania (29-1, 12 KOs) looked better than expected against Oscar Valdez (22-0, 19 KOs), though the cards were wide and clear. In the fourth round the Filipino challenger dropped a defensively irresponsible Valdez. He didn’t seem that badly hurt, but when he got up a grazing shot turned his legs into spaghetti so clearly he was. Servania came out aggressively looking for a finish in the fifth, but it backfired and a huge Valdez left hook at range made it his turn on the canvas. Valdez controlled the fight from there, though Servania did have a couple big rallies.
Oscar Valdez is a good exciting young fighter, but he has some real work to do in the gym. He has regressed as a boxer a bit and is now looking more like an exciting brawler. His tendency to sit on the inside and wing giant hooks is great for us as a viewer, but it won’t work well when he works his way to the top of the division. Despite the belt, the two time Mexican Olympian is more prospect still than champion, an exciting one though. As for Servania, he was a much better athlete than expected and can now be viewed as a real fringe contender at featherweight.
The cards came back 117-109, 116-110, and 115-111. I had it 116-110, as did Teddy Atlas.
In the co-main event, Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez (36-0, 24 KOs) persevered through a second half rally from Jesse Hart (22-1, 18 KOs) to retain his WBO super middleweight title. After a good opening frame from Hart, Ramirez scored a second round knockdown that badly hurt his Philly opponent and altered the fight completely for a few rounds. Hart was forced to go into survival mode for the rest of the the second, the entire third, and then took a sustained beating in the fourth.
Hart was able to stabilized himself in the sixth. After a good seventh from Zurdo, the challenger mostly took control of the fight from there on. In the eleventh round, Jesse caught Gilberto with a beautiful right hand that looked like it hurt him, but he didn’t try to capitalize. The twelfth and final round was a grueling one fought on the inside and a few flashy, head snapping shots probably won it for Hart, though Ramirez may have hurt him at the ten second warning.
This was a very good fight. While Jesse Hart found himself in too big of an early hole to claw all the way out of in terms of scoring, he announced himself as a real contender in the division. No one has been that competitive with Gilberto Ramirez. I scored it 115-112 for Ramirez. Two judges had it the same with one having it 114-113. Teddy Atlas scored it 114-112, scoring round four 10-8 along the way which is reasonable.
Michael Conlan (4-0, 4 KOs) made the broadcast as well as he stopped Kenny Guzman (3-1, 1 KO) in the second round. Conlan, a two time Olympian, is being positioned as an Irish star by Top Rank, but he gets hit a lot. Right now he looks more like a future action star, but of course he will have many fights to improve before Top Rank really steps him up.
