By David Robinett at ringside
Former IBF super featherweight champion Jose “Sniper” Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs) continued his climb up the lightweight ladder with a ten round unanimous decision over Antonio Moran (22-3 15 KOs) by surprisingly close identical scores of 96-94. For his trouble Pedraza picked up the WBO Latino lightweight title. Pedraza, who took most of the year off in 2017 after losing his belt to Gervonta Davis, looked sharp in this one, using superior upper body movement and defense to evade many of Moran’s flurries and attempts at combinations, and then firing back with sharp, accurate counterpunches that shredded Moran’s face, leaving it a bloody mess from about the third round forward. When he wasn’t slipping punches Pedraza was able to cover up and absorb many of Moran’s punches with his gloves. In the later rounds, as Moran’s aggression started to fade, Pedraza switched out counterpunching for stinging lead left hands which Moran was too slow to avoid. Pedraza’s lack of one-punch power might be a liability against the best, but against Moran it just prolonged the punishment, the proverbial death by a thousand cuts, culminating in an impressive performance establishing Pedraza as a legitimate contender in his new weight class.
In a WBA world title eliminator, undefeated Jose Benavidez (27-0, 18 KOs) barely broke a sweat in quickly disposing of previously unbeaten knockout artist Frank Rojas (22-1, 21 KOs) via first round knockout. A straight left hand by Benavidez, followed by a left hook to the body, caused a delayed reaction by Rojas, who backed up a few steps, and then dropped to the canvas for nearly a minute, with an official end of 1:24 of the first round. Although the win might have been as much about Rojas’ padded record coming into the bout as it was the body punch by Benavidez, following a nearly two year layoff after being shot in the leg, the win was undoubtedly a welcome one for comebacking Benavidez, who now has two wins in a row since returning to the ring this past February. Continue reading “Horn-Crawford Undercard Results”
Photos: Team SES / P. Gercke
