By Ryan Bivins
The televised portion for Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on ESPN got off to a rocky start with unexpected rain delaying the televised action. Eventually the rain died down and ESPN went directly to the main event.
IBO/WBA "regular" junior middleweight champion Erislandy "The American Dream" Lara (22-2-2, 13 KOs) stopped former world champion Jan Zaveck (35-4, 19 KOs) in three rounds at the Hialeah Park Racing and Casino in Miami.
Lara was very sharp and unexpectedly more aggressive from the very first round. The straight left hand was landing all fight on Zaveck's head. During the third round, Lara was letting his hands go when he pinned Zaveck against the ropes. Zaveck had no answer as Lara was unloading with combinations.
As the combinations were firing in, Zaveck motioned to the referee and indicated that he no longer wanted to continue - and the referee jumped in to wave off the fight. Zaveck told officials that he injured his right shoulder, but it wasn't clear where that injury came from.
In the second televised bout, Emmanuel Rodriguez (13-0, 9 KOs) outboxed Eliecer Aquino (17-1-1, 11 KOs) for some regional WBA/WBC bantamweight titles. It rained from the opening round but the fighters didn’t seem to mind. Aquino focused on winging ineffective lead hooks while Rodriguez set up his power shots with jabs and threw much shorter punches.
Aquino was floored by a counter right hand in round 3, got his mouth piece knocked out in rounds 4, 5 (twice), and 7 (lost a point for it) and was generally worked over until referee Samuel Burgos took mercy on him 2:44 into round 7. Rodriguez won by technical knockout.
ADD COMMENT VIEW COMMENTS (72)