By Ryan Burton
Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada - In a battle for the BKB middleweight championship, Gabe Rosado retained his world title when he battled Curtis Stevens to a seven round majority draw. The scores were 69-63 for Stevens, and the two remaining judges scored it a 66-66 draw. Unofficial BKB scorer, trainer Robert Garcia, scored the fight for Rosado by a point.
Rosado was busier in the first round and took the action to Stevens, who wasn't applying the expected pressure or big punch combinations. Stevens appeared to stun Rosado at the start of the second and let his hands go to follow up. Rosado quickly tied him up to get out of trouble. The third round was close with both having their moments. The fourth round was close and Rosado seemed to have the edge.
In the fifth, Rosado was winning the round but then Stevens landed a short left hook to drop him in the closing seconds. The sixth was also close and possibly stolen by Rosado at the end with a flurry of shots, but Stevens was landing some heavy lumber. Rosado boxed well in the seventh and final round, but Stevens was applying pressure and landed several good shots to make it close and Rosado did himself no favors by showboating at the end.
It was bombs away in the Jesus Soto Karass vs. Ed Paredes co-feature bout. Soto Karass landed the bigger shots and had the better chin as the men exchanged bombs over five rounds. Karass was throwing wide punches but Paredes wasn't able to capitalize often enough to slow down his offense. The final scores were 49-46 on all three cards.
The junior middleweight BKB title changed hands as Khurshid Abdullaev punished the former champion David Estrada over seven rounds. He dropped Estrada twice in the 5th as he dominated the fight from the opening bell. The final scores were 69-61 twice and 68-62.
Anthony Johnson kept his BKB cruiserweight title with an unanimous decision victory over Joey Montoya in a highly entertaining fight. There were a total of four knockdowns in the fight.
Both fighters went down in the first round from big shots. Johnson went down again in the third and Montoya voluntarily left the pit to get time to recover which counts as a knockdown.
The two warriors continued to trade shots throughout the rest of the fight but managed to stay on their feet. The final tallies were 68-65 on all three cards.
In the first ever women's BKB event, Layla McCarter defeated Diana Prazak via TKO to capture the women's lightweight championship. The fight opened up the pay-per-view telecast. The time of the stoppage was 1:50 in the seventh and final round.
Both women slugged it out over all seven rounds but the more experienced McCarter clearly was getting the better of the action. McCarter scored two knockdowns and referee Russell Mora stopped the fight shortly after the second knockdown when a bloodied Prazak didn't throw any punches back.
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