Undefeated #5 WBO 154-lb contender Xander Zayas (18-0, 12 KOs) squares off against Brazilian knockout artist Patrick Teixeira (34-4, 25 KOs) on a ten-round testing fight on ESPN.
Zayas, 21, is being moved quickly by his promoter, Bob Arum, to take advantage of His Excellency’s interest in the 154-lb division. If he’s lucky, he can get a chance to face Terence Crawford before he leaves the division to head up to 168.
Fight Night Details
The main card for tonight’s Zayas vs. Teixeira contest begins at 11 pm. ET/8 pm. PT, live on ESPN from the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
B247 will be giving live updates, and the results of tonight’s action are below.
Flyweight Andy Dominguez (11-1, 6 KOs) won an entertaining eight-round majority decision over Christopher Rios (10-2, 7 KOs) in a classic phonebooth type of fight.
Rios landed the harder shots, but Dominguez’s punch output was impressive and clearly what the judges looked at when scoring the fight.
The judges’ scores were 76-76, 78-74, and 77-75.
Junior middleweight Jahi Tucker (11-1-1, 5 KOs) dominated the tough Quincy LaVallais (17-5-1, 12 KOs), winning a wide eight round unanimous decision. The scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72.
Tucker frequently trapped LaVallias against the ropes and hit him nonstop shots without worrying about what would come back. It was surprising the fight wasn’t halted because LaVallias took an enormous amount of punishment from the 21-year-old Tucker.
Super featherweight Ofacio Falcon (12-0, 6 KOs) boxed his way to a six-round unanimous decision over Antonio Dunton El Jr. (5-3-2, 2 KOs). The judge’s scores were 59-54, 60-53, and 60-53. Dunton El Jr. was down in the second from a jab. He was hit when he was off balance and fell over.
Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Ali Feliz (2-0, 2 KOs) obliterated Lemir Isom Riley (4-3, 2 KOs), stopping him in the first round. Feliz, 20, caught Riley with a perfect right to the head to put him down on the canvas. The referee, Eddie Claudio, stopped the fight at 1:25 of the round.
The chief support bout has featherweight Bruce Carrington fighting Brayan De Gracia in a ten-round fight.
The preliminary card will be shown on ESPN+, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET
Zayas hasn’t faced enough well-known opposition as of yet for him to get his name out there. Still, he could be heading for stardom, especially with the junior middleweight division opening up with Crawford campaigning in the division and Tim Tszyu being dethroned.
Social Media Presence: A Missing Piece
What’s missing with Zayas is his social media presence. He doesn’t have a strong social media presence the way he should, and his management needs to work with him on this. He can’t expect his promoters at Top Rank to singlehandedly turn him into a star without him talking it up on Instagram and X.
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