LAS VEGAS \u2013 Emiliano Vargas impressively brought his family name back to a holiday boxing weekend in Las Vegas Sunday night, disposing of Spain\u2019s Juan Leon by second-round technical knockout at T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n
Performing on the card headlined by undisputed junior-featherweight champion Naoya Inoue of Japan, Vargas, 14-0 (12 KOs), overwhelmed Leon, 11-3-1, with an earlier knockdown in the second.<\/p>\n
The finishing touch he applied was a sudden, thunderous left-handed uppercut to the face that brought referee Robert Hoyle to end the bout 1 minute, 40 seconds into the round.<\/p>\n
Top Rank matchmakers plan to keep the 21-year-old son of Fernando Vargas busy after bringing him back just 36 days after his second-round TKO of Giovannie Gonzalez on March 29.<\/p>\n
Vargas\u2019 former junior-middleweight world champion father, Fernando Vargas, staged the memorable 2002 Mexican Independence weekend bout with Oscar De La Hoya, who won by 11th-round TKO.<\/p>\n
The elder Vargas told BoxingScene recently that he can foresee his talented, charismatic son emerging as one of the most formidable candidates to replace Saul \u201cCanelo\u201d Alvarez as a leading draw in the sport given his penchant for the knockout, his legacy and talent.<\/p>\n
The younger Vargas captured his first belt with Sunday\u2019s victory, collecting the NABF 140lbs strap.<\/p>\n
Rohan Polanco, 16-0, the WBO\u2019s 10th-rated welterweight, clinched his rise by posting a unanimous-decision victory by three 100-89 scores over recent title challenger Fabian Maidana 24-4.<\/p>\n
Maidana, the Argentinian brother of former welterweight champion Marcos Maidana, fought for the WBC title exactly one year ago, losing a unanimous decision to current champion Mario Barrios Jnr. Maidana rallied with two victories in his home country.<\/p>\n
He struggled with Polanco\u2019s hand speed and counterpunching early, as the Dominican maintained an aggressor\u2019s stance, willing to absorb some blows in exchange for landing the telling shots.<\/p>\n
Polanco\u2019s attention to the body allowed him to sneak in scoring head shots, and that variety of power blows led him to land a late 10th-round knockdown on a right-handed body shot to seal the outcome.<\/p>\n
Earlier, in his U.S. debut, unbeaten Japan featherweight Mikito Nakano, 13-0 (12 KOs), recorded five knockdowns of Pedro Marquez, the last of which prompted a stoppage at 1:58 of the fourth round.
Nakano, 29, knocked down Puerto Rico\u2019s Marquez twice in the second, initially with a combination of left-handed blows to the head, then another left that dropped Marquez again.<\/p>\n
A third knockdown \u2013 from another left \u2013 occurred in the third round, but Marquez stood up, bounced on both feet and held up both hands before completing the session.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t so lucky in the fourth, absorbing a power blow by the left-hander to kneel again before getting sent down for good seconds later.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a junior-middleweight bout, Art Barrera Jnr, another product of trainer Robert Garcia\u2019s prolific gym in Moreno Valley, California, scored a sixth-round technical knockout of Chicago\u2019s Juan Carlos Guerra Jnr, 6-2-1.<\/p>\n
While Barrera, 9-0 (7 KOs), showed he\u2019s up for engaging in a toe-to-toe slugfest by doing so with Guerra to start the third round, he wore his opponent down with a steady roll of heavy handed blows to the head, which prompted a ringside doctor\u2019s visit of Guerra before the final round began.<\/p>\n
At the 1:15 mark of the sixth, referee Thomas Taylor waved the fight over after Barrera blasted Guerra with another wave of jarring head shots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ra\u2019eese Aleem, 34, who suffered a 2023 split-decision loss to Australia\u2019s Sam Goodman that cost him pole position to an Inoue fight, opened the card by flashing a sharp left hook and outworking Rudy Garcia to claim a unanimous-decision victory by scores of 98-92, 97-93, 99-91.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aleem, 22-1, discouraged South Central Los Angeles\u2019 Garcia, 13-2-1, with the effectiveness of his hook, relying on increased activity and a more universal skillset to win his second bout for Top Rank after debuting for the promotion in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Emiliano Vargas impressively brought his family name back to a holiday boxing weekend in Las…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,4495,37455,79,37456,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-75947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-boxingscene","11":"tag-emiliano-vargas","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-top-rank","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114454179675480811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75947","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=75947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}