LAS VEGAS \u2013 Whatever desperation his veteran opponent, Robson Conceicao, was feeling about a final title shot, it didn\u2019t measure up to the motivation Raymond Muratalla carries within.<\/p>\n
The IBF lightweight champion produced a sustained, pressured attack on Brazil\u2019s Conceicao Saturday night at Virgin Hotels Resort Casino, posting his second consecutive victory over an Olympic gold medalist and winning a unanimous decision by scores of 118-110 and 117-111 (twice). <\/p>\n
Muratalla, 25-0 (17 KOs), studied Conceicao during the first round, surging inside and unleashing a few power rights while the gold medalist leaned on his creative instincts to find a few openings before Muratalla, of Fontana, California, found Conceicao late.<\/p>\n
Muratalla\u2019s will paved the way for him to rush past Conceicao\u2019s scoring jabs and deliver effective rights and a punishing body combination in the second.<\/p>\n
When the fight went inside during the third, Muratalla dug in and found Conceicao, 21-4-1 (10 KOs), with a hard left and uppercut. An exchange during the fourth also favored Muratalla, and he learned through open scoring he was leading 40-36, 39-37, 39-37.<\/p>\n
The champion accelerated his hand speed and pressure in the fifth, cornering Conceicao against the ropes while Muratalla showed no effect from swelling at the left eye.<\/p>\n
Muratalla\u2019s energy and skill put Conceicao on the defensive, mulling a switch to southpaw that didn\u2019t net results as Muratalla landed the defining punches.<\/p>\n
After eight rounds, Muratalla was leading 79-73 on all three scorecards.<\/p>\n
The information prompted Conceicao to fight more aggressively, but it opened him up to Muratalla\u2019s hurtful activity, and as the ninth round moved to its final seconds, Conceicao was slowing.<\/p>\n
After inheriting the IBF belt from retired Vasiliy Lomachenko last year, Muratalla successfully defended it with a majority decision victory over Cuban gold medalist Andy Cruz, also in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Meeting 37-year-old former sjunior lightweight champion Conceicao brought a challenger making a final stand.<\/p>\n
But with the likes of four-division champion Shakur Stevenson, the winner of Saturday\u2019s main event pitting Lamont Roach Jnr versus William Zepeda for the vacant WBC lightweight belt and Top Rank stablemate and WBO champion Abdullah Mason in attendance, Muratalla has far more pressing matters.<\/p>\n
And it showed, as his power punches increasingly discouraged Conceicao in the 11th, leading to an outcome-clinching effort in the 12th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Whatever desperation his veteran opponent, Robson Conceicao, was feeling about a final title shot, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1127278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,10184,4495,306852,306853,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-1127277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-results","tag-boxingscene","tag-raymond-muratalla","tag-robson-conceicao","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117029894185709080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1127278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}