By Cliff Rold

In a week where major main events for the men are sparing on US television, fight fans don’t have to go without. One of the best fighters in the world can be seen in the US Saturday night.

On tape delay.

The results are already in. Puerto Rico’s 28-year old Amanda Serrano (33-1-1, 25 KO) added yet another victory Friday night with a third-round stoppage of 27-year old Hungarian Edina Kiss (13-5, 7 KO) in defense of the WBO super bantamweight title. It was her second successful defense. 

It was also only the second knockout loss in Kiss’s career. Both have come to the same pair of gloves.

Serrano defeated Kiss in non-title action last April, stopping her in four. In a sport where the men’s side credits fighters who go to scratch a whopping three times in a year, something not often seen anymore in the title ranks, Serrano was already making her third appearance this year.

Kiss had been more active. This was her eleventh fight since the first loss to Serrano. She had gone 7-3 since but came in bested twice by the undefeated Heather Hardy in her last three fights.

Kiss was expected to lose and did so. It still might be worth it, for those who couldn’t see the fight live, to give it a look tomorrow on BeIn Espanol (11 PM EST). Not everyone has the network in their cable package but for those who do, three rounds worth of review merits at least a little DVR space, right? After all, Serrano may soon be lured away from the squared circle and into the cage. Serrano, following a recent move by Hardy, may be heading towards MMA.

For Serrano, the fanfare was surely less than her last engagement. To solid coverage, Serrano became the first woman in history to win titles in five weight classes in April. Notable, beyond the accomplishment, was that the stoppage victory over Dahiana Santana aired on Showtime Extreme.

No, it wasn’t the main telecast headlined on Showtime by Shawn Porter-Andre Berto. It was still an expansion of exposure for a name largely unknown to even hardcore fight fans. Fair or unfair, there is still a portion of the boxing fan base that hasn’t embraced the women’s side of the sport the way MMA fans have.

Serrano is the sort of engaging, charismatic force that could help to widen the embrace. Last time out, she added a WBO bantamweight belt to a career that also includes belts at super bantamweight/Jr. welterweight, featherweight, super featherweight/Jr. lightweight, and lightweight.

That she won the titles by jumping all over the scale, capturing the lightest of them last, is rare in the annals of multiple division winners. Bob Fitzsimmons became boxing’s first triple-crown champion when he won the light heavyweight title after winning the honors at middleweight and heavyweight but light heavyweight wasn’t a thing when he won the first two. Henry Armstrong went from featherweight to welterweight before adding the lightweight crown.

Most other multiple division champions and titlists follow a more direct line. Will Serrano be heading in a straight line out of the sport? It may be that a flirtation with MMA doesn’t last but the women on that side of the fighting divide are being more richly rewarded.

A Serrano-Hardy fight of any kind would actually be intriguing. The lacking economics of women’s boxing might leave that showdown for a different sport altogether. If they ever elect to square off, maybe they’ll do something crafty like a two-fight deal with one in each realm.

It might get them the eyeballs they deserve. 

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene and a member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com