By Chris LaBate
At the American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida, IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (22-0, 18KOs) won a lopsided unanimous twelve round decision over Fulgencio Zuniga (24-5, 21KOs). The scores were 117-108, 118-108 and 116-109. Cloud got in some good work, but it didn't look to good that he couldn't stop a fighter who spent nearly his entire career in lower weight divisions and was knocked out a few times in the past.
It was bombs away early on and the pace never stopped. In the fourth round, Zuniga stunned Cloud, who came back in the fifth to rock and drop Zuniga with a short right hand. They traded punches for the final 30 seconds as Cloud tried to finish him off.
Zuniga continued to be game in rounds six and seven, trading punches with Cloud who was stronger and landing much harder. Cloud was mixing up his punches in the seventh and went to the body a few times but his defense was either not there tonight or he didn't care about anything Zuniga was throwing.
Cloud took off the eight and allowed to Zuniga to do more work but came back in the final minute with some hard punches. In the ninth, Cloud was landing some very hard punches and Zuniga continued to take them and continued to swing back. The tenth round was almost an exact duplicate of the ninth.Zuniga started the eleventh well with punches to the head and body. Cloud seemed to be taking a breather in the first minute and began to start throwing after the minor rest.
A brief pause was called at the start of the twelfth to fix some loose tape on Cloud's glove. Around the final minute, Cloud landed a combination of punches to send Zuniga down. He almost appeared as if he was going to take the full count but then he rose to his feet and continued to fight toe to toe with Cloud until the bell.
