Live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Main card on Paramount+. Full main event coverage separately.
Main card
Jai Opetaia TKO9 Noel Mikaelian. The most litigated fight of the year ended the way the lawyers couldn’t manage: definitively. Opetaia (31-0, 24 KOs) did what no man had done in Mikaelian’s fifteen-year professional career and stopped him, breaking down the Armenian’s famous durability in the ninth round of a fight Opetaia controlled nearly throughout, with one genuine scare along the way. The Australian hurt Mikaelian to the body as early as the second and was pitching a near-shutout when Mikaelian’s right hand, the one weapon that found a home all night, landed clean in the second half and wobbled the champion badly, forcing him to hold and survive the roughest moments of his reign. Opetaia regrouped, went back to the body and the inside uppercuts, and broke Mikaelian (28-4) for the first time. The winner leaves with the Ring and Zuffa titles plus the WBA’s late-arriving regular belt, three straps, none of them the IBF and WBC championships these two actually won in the ring, both confiscated on the way into the building. Don King’s cease-and-desist, the WBC’s refusal to sanction, and the whole month of legal artillery came to nothing a ninth-round barrage couldn’t settle. David Benavidez, holding the belt Mikaelian left behind, is the fight the division now demands.
Da’Mazion Vanhouter KO1 Raphael Akpejiori (1:58). The biggest favorite on the card delivered the wildest ninety seconds of the night. Vanhouter (13-0, 10 KOs) walked through Akpejiori’s reach advantage, wobbled the 6-foot-8 Nigerian with an overhand right, and floored him with a right hand off a combination. Akpejiori beat the count on unsteady legs, and then came the twist: Vanhouter dropped to his knees in a clinch with an apparent shoulder injury, the referee called time, and for a moment the biggest lock on the card looked like it might end in disaster. Instead the 21-year-old got up, went straight back to work, and put Akpejiori (19-4) down again to end it at 1:58 of the first. Six straight knockouts for the Albany prospect, five of them in round one. “This is what I wanted to do. I signed on to become the best and that’s why I am here.” Dana White’s favorite young American heavyweight keeps making the case impossible to argue.
Andres Cortes UD10 Mark Magsayo (97-93, 97-93, 97-93). The pick’em fight went to the hometown fighter, and cleanly. Cortes (26-0) controlled the action behind his jab through the first half, saw Magsayo touch the canvas four times with none ultimately ruled knockdowns, two overturned on review, and absorbed Magsayo’s late-fight rally in the eighth and ninth before taking the tenth back on the front foot to seal it. Magsayo (29-3) had his moments in flurries but couldn’t sustain them against Cortes’ accuracy, even as a cut above Cortes’ right eye slowed him late. The unbeaten Las Vegas native, who grew up dreaming of a night like this in his own city, kept it simple afterward: “Everybody knows how good I am. My time is coming.” At 26-0 with a top-15 ranking in three sanctioning bodies, he’s earned the conversation.
Prelims
Oswaldo Molina UD6 Pablo Rubio (60-54, 59-55, 59-55). The battle of unbeatens wasn’t the coin flip the records suggested. Molina (10-0) controlled the catchweight contest from the opening round and swept it wide on all three cards, handing Rubio (15-1) the first loss of his career in one-sided fashion. Somebody’s zero had to go. It went quietly.
Abel Gonzalez UD8 Raul Salomon (77-74, 77-74, 77-74). The unbeaten super middleweight hit the canvas from a right hook in the final thirty seconds of the opening round, then took the fight over completely, dodging Salomon’s power and walking him onto clean counters for seven rounds. Gonzalez moves to 9-0 and spent his post-fight interview calling for Richardson Hitchins, Devin Haney, or the winner of the main event, ambition not lacking.
Vlad Panin TKO4 Dakota Linger (1:22). Panin (25-2) turned the biggest stage of his career into a six-and-a-half-minute statement, and the New York club circuit veteran never gave Linger (17-8-3) a moment to settle. A left hook to the body hurt Linger in the final thirty seconds of the opening round, a right uppercut lifted his chin as he tried to cover, and by the second round the referee was telling Linger directly that he had to show him something. He couldn’t. The beatdown continued to the head and body until back-to-back clean combinations in the fourth forced the referee to step in and wave it off at 1:22 with Linger absorbing a barrage on the ropes. The Belarus-born banger who stopped the previously unstoppable Shinard Bunch on the way here now has a signature win on the biggest boxing card of the year.
Alexis Rocha UD10 Jose Ramirez (98-91, 98-91, 97-92). A legitimate war with a disputed ending on two fronts. Rocha (27-2-1, 16 KOs) conceded the early rounds to Ramirez’s experience and craft, then raised his output through the middle of the fight and took the action to the former unified 140-pound champion. A ninth-round clash of heads left Rocha cut and bleeding, and after the doctor cleared him he came storming back, with Ramirez ruled down moments later on a call the veteran protested immediately. The knockdown went to replay review and stood. Both men emptied out in a tremendous tenth. Then the cards were read, and 98-91 twice for a fight this competitive raised eyebrows across ringside, with at least one media scorecard having Ramirez winning 95-94. The right storylines are still true: Rocha’s ceiling question got its best answer yet, and Ramirez (29-4), now a three-fight loser at 34, faces the crossroads no fighter outruns. But the width of those cards will be argued about longer than the fight lasted.
Sean Garcia MD6 Abraham Morales (56-56, 58-54, 58-54). The champion’s younger brother opened the family’s evening by weathering Morales’ nonstop pressure, then making him pay for it late in the third with a counter left hook, the Garcia household’s signature weapon, for a knockdown. A harsh-looking point deduction in the fifth handed Morales (4-2) his best round and a path back into the fight, but Garcia (8-1-1) boxed cleanly through the sixth to bank the majority decision. One judge’s 56-56 card was the only drama on the scorecards.
