Santa Cruz upsets Frampton via MD & Garcia wins WBC belt with KO of the year

Photo from Esther Lin/SHOWTIME

‎The main event of the evening picked up where their first chapter left off; another ‘Fight of the Year’ type of performance between Carl Frampton (23-1) and Leo Santa Cruz (33-1-1) for Frampton’s WBA Super featherweight title and the WBC Diamond featherweight belt. The match was 12 rounds of action in essence making this rounds 13 through 24 in their rivalry, one which they have both agreed to run back one more time for the trilogy. The two fighters touched on this onmultiple times at the post-fight press conference giving each other much credit and respect as true ambassadors of the sport suggesting a Belfast or Los Angeles setting for Part 3.

Photo from Esther Lin/SHOWTIME

Ironically , the match was another majority decision with scores this time of 114-114 and 115-113, twice for Santa Cruz. What’s also poetic is that these men traded places over the course of 36 minutes tonight as the 10,000 plus screamed and cheered them along inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Leo was the smarter boxer now, and Carl was the counter-striker trying to brawl.

For the first match, Santa Cruz wasted too much time trying to be the counter-puncher who endlessly searched for the big shot, doing so without much of a jab and combinations to the body. This time around for the rematch he applied a jab early and often, right from Round 1. The Mexican warrior also attacked the body and mixed in combinations and added his own twist to the game plan by going hard the last 15 to 30 seconds of the stanza leaving an impression on the judges and fans. It’s as if Team Santa Cruz watched the tape of the first bout which took place on the east coast, made it their own and successfully executed it with the aforementioned twist of stealing the round in the final half a minute or so. Frampton even pointed that out in the post fight press conference, that his opponent boxed allot better and took the round from him with those flurries.

To his credit, the Belfast representative only has one loss and that’s to Leo, and Santa Cruz has only one loss, that’s to Carl Frampton. They bring the best out of one another and Frampton showed spurts of his brilliance when he backed up Leo in the middle of the match, double and triple jabbed and turned his man or landed a clean over hand right. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as often and as necessary as it should have been and he admitted to having an excellent camp and that there were no excuses: “the better man won tonight”.

Their battle leans as an early candidate for Fight of the Year and regardless of where the final chapter happens, it’ll surely be one for the ages to go along with other great rivalries like Barrera vs. Erik Morales, Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez and Arturo Gatti vs. Micky. Ward.

GARCIA STOPS ZLATICANIN IN 3 ROUNDS FOR TITLE IN 3RD WEIGHT CLASS

The co-main event of the evening from the MGM Grand hotel and casino for the Showtime telecast featured unbeaten Mikey Garcia (36-0) challenging for a world title in his third weight class as he took on Dejan Zlaticanin (18-1) for the Podgorcia native’s WBC lightweight belt.

The Garcia Boxing Academy representative was on point from the very start of the championship battle as Garcia backed his man up and tagged him using a ‎clean jab and solid over hand right while stepping towards his own left to safely avoid his man’s big left hand. He alternated his jab from upstairs to down stairs, he also led with it and circled away from his foe’s powerhand putting him in a box as he cracked him with a thudding right hand. It seemed for the first 2 rounds that Garcia was going to masterfully box his way to a decision verdict simply off of that strategy and great footwork.

Then the power of Mikey Garcia struck out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning.

Early into Round 3 the undefeated warrior was able to back up Zlaticanin with his jab and footwork; he lined him up along the ring corner and landed a picture perfect right uppercut and left hook , which was the beginning of ‎the end for his foe, before landing a massive right hand bomb. The Podgorica native was already on unsteady legs from the two punches and found himself stumbling into the ropes therefore when he turned around to square up with his man Garcia had already set his feet and threw a powerful, looping right hand shot that landed flush on the face of his opponent. Instantly, Zlaticanin fell lifelesss unto the canvas crashing on his side to the mat, laying there for a few moments.

Photo from Esther Lin/SHOWTIME

The jovial Garica cornered cheered abruptly thanks to their triumph but upon noticing their man’s condition respect was shown and everyone remained quiet in their corner while the stretcher was placed under Zlaticanin. Luckily, he was able to return to his feet on his own will and nod his head that he was ‘ok’.

He will continue on and likely return in the second half of the year. As for the undefeated and newly minted champion, the KO victory gives Mikey Garcia the WBC world title in his third weight class with an official time of (2:21) of Round 3 and many options in the lightweight division. The most exciting, which he touched on at the post fight presser conference , was welcoming unbeaten Vasyl Lomachenko to the division in a battle of undefeated world class champions.