HBO Latino results: Campa decisions Herrera; Barrera and Magomedov score wins

Pedro Campa stayed undefeated after earning a wide unanimous decision over Aaron Herrera in the main event of an HBO Latino card on Saturday  night. Co-promoted by Top Rank Promotions and Main Events, the card was held at the Civic Auditorium in Glendale, Calif.

After feeling each other out for a few rounds, the two Mexican junior welterweights eventually found their grooves to go toe-to-toe. Clubbing hooks to the body, sharp uppercuts and power shots upstairs didn’t all necessarily land cleanly but Campa’s shots made the lasting impression.

Campa, 19-0 (14), slowly started to deflate Herrera’s action with his body shots and started to take over the fight in the middle rounds. Herrera, 29-4-1 (18), had no defensive tactic, or offensive one for that matter, to thwart Campa’s constant pressure. While neither fighter was seriously stunned in the contest, the two willfully slugged it out in their American debuts to try and capture the public’s attention on national television.

Sullivan Barrera scored a huge victory over Karo Murat after stopping him in the fifth round when referee Wayne Hedgpeth had seen enough. The contest was an IBF light heavyweight title elimination bout and the victory puts Barrera in line to face organization titleholder Sergey Kovalev.

“The uppercut in the fourth round was my best punch,” Barrera told  UCNLive.com  after the fight. That was ultimately the shot that secured him the victory. Shortly after knocking Murat down with that shot, Barrera forced his hurt opponent to bottle up in a corner and without seeing Murat throw punches, Hedgpeth took the liberty to stop the fight at 25 seconds into the fifth.

The fight started off slow, yet that was expected because of Murat’s consistent, herky-jerky style of boxing. The two bumped bodies and sometimes heads in the first two rounds before Barrera started to find his range with his left jab. In the third round, sweat began to fly and most of it came from Murat’s head. Behind the jab, Barrera couldn’t miss with his follow-up right hand and soon had Murat retreating around the ring.

Precisely at the same time the bell sounded to end the third, Barrera landed a perfect left hook that sent Murat, 27-3-1 (17), stumbling backward into the turnbuckle for the knockdown. With momentum behind him, Barrera seized the opportunity and started letting his hands go up until the point where the fateful uppercut landed.

Barrera, 17-0 (12), was ecstatic backstage after his victory and couldn’t stop hugging his trainer, Abel Sanchez. “I need to wait for my team,” Barrera said on the prospect of getting in line to face Kovalev, who was there ringside for the fight. While Kovalev has fights lined up already for the year, his promoter, Main Events, also handles Barrera, making the match-up seemingly easy to make, once its time comes.

In the opening bout of the HBO Latino telecast, middleweight Arif “The Predator” Magomedov, 17-0 (10), stopped Jonathan Tavira, 12-4 (9), in the seventh round to stay undefeated.

Magomedov wasted no time showcasing his power and did so by attacking Tavira’s body early. He used a left hook and it echoed throughout the small auditorium whenever it landed square on Tavira’s ribs. While Tavira would try to return fire, it was already obvious whose shots packed more punch.

One of those left hooks was apparently too low for referee Zac Young’s liking and instead of ruling it a knockdown when Tavira folded to the canvas in the second, Young called it a low blow. Tavira seemed to have regrouped in the short break and managed to somehow make Magomedov forget about the left hook because that too took a break. Yet, in the fourth round, a counter right hand dropped Tavira for a knockdown, a punch he certainly didn’t expect.

Magomedov proceeded to look for the knockout but Tavira snuck in some uppercuts that put Arif into a lull, compared to how he started off the fight. Tavira also started to get more physical with his Russian counterpart and it frustrated Magomedov enough to the point in which he started to push Tavira’s head down consistently. In the sixth, Young had enough of the fouling and deducted a point from Magomedov.

Maybe disciplining Magomedov settled him down, as he came back strong in the seventh. He went back to his left hand to the body but it was merely another detraction from his right hand. One landed perfectly on Tavira’s chin to drop him for the knockdown. Jonathan beat Young’s 10-count; however, Young waved it off once he saw Tavira stumble on jelly legs when he asked him to come forward.