Welterweight Fabian Maidana had more than one reason to get revenge on Mexico’s Francisco Mercado. And hopefully the result of their fight last Saturday night at Buenos Aires’ Argentina Boxing Federation Stadium will provide enough closure to put their rivalry behind them for good.
Maidana stopped Mercado with a brutal, textbook hook to the liver in their strange first match in Mexico in 2021, a high-profile battle between the biggest highwaymen of the new century.
Fighting with a sense of purpose and determined to change the script for those who doubted the finishing skills that turned his brother Marcos into a national boxing champion, Maidana went to work from the first bell trying to avoid Mercado’s dirty tricks and wild attacks, countering well. and suppresses action whenever possible.
In the middle of the second round, Maidana chose to fight fire with fire, unleashing one of those left hooks that has become the trademark of Mexican boxing. His opponent conceded power and good boxing position by falling backwards and not getting up until referee Gerardo Poggi reached the count of ten.
EN REVANCHA, TNT MAIDANA NOQUEÓ A FRANCISCO MERCADO Y SE CONSAGRÓ NUEVAO CAMPEÓN FEDELATIN
Peso wélter / 10 cycles
🏆 Título Fedelatin WBA✅ Fabián Maidana (23-3-0, 17 KOs) KOT2 a Francisco Mercado (8-5-0, 3 KOs)
📌 Árbitro: Gerardo Poggi pic.twitter.com/KmiOhrsodX– Boxeo de Primera (@BoxeoDePrimera) October 27, 2024
The fight was stopped with 40 seconds left in the second round, thus Maidana reached 23-3 with 17 rounds and Mercado returned home with 8-5 (3 KOs).
Their first clash, which took place on December 17, 2021 in Mexico, was marked by all kinds of punches and illegal tactics by Mercado, who took over late in what was supposed to be Maidana’s best-ever show at the time. .
After several warnings and several illegal punches including elbows and low blows, Mercado finally connected with a butt that cut Maidana’s right eyebrow, prompting referee Alejandro Guel Lomeli to stop the contest and eject Mercado from the ring in the seventh round.
A few minutes later, Guel Lomeli holding both hands of the fighter to make the official announcement, a set of score cards read by the ring announcer to the surprise of the entire audience, one judge called it 58-58 and the remaining two cards 57-56. , one for each fighter.
So the fight was called a draw, but the weirdness of everything wouldn’t stop there, because the fight was “reviewed again” at one point and awarded to Mercado by unanimous decision. Still listed on BoxRec as a Maidana loss.
Earlier on the card, Sol Cudos stopped Colombian street fighter Johana Zuñiga in five rounds in an atomweight bout. Cudos held the belt throughout and overpowered his opponent until referee Ruben Figueroa stopped the fight as Zuñiga appeared defenseless following a flurry of punches.
In another women’s fight, former champion Anahi Sanchez earned a unanimous decision over Erica Alvarez in a ten-round junior welterweight bout. Earlier, Silio Vilte remained undefeated with a five-round victory over Jonathan Arena in the junior welterweight championship.
Diego M. Morilla has been writing for The Ring since 2013. He has written for HBO.com, ESPN.com and many other magazines, websites, newspapers and outlets since 1993. He is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. and an International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee. She has won two first place awards in the BWAA’s annual writing contest, and is the moderator of The Ring’s Women’s Ratings Panel. He worked as a copy editor for the second season of The Ring en Español (2018-2020) and is currently a writer and editor for RingTV.com.
