By Amy Green
Three top-notch women’s title fights were televised on March 22 on Fox Sports "Best Damn Sports Show Period", live from the Isleta Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Holly Holm continued her reign as the hometown hero, defeating New York’s Ann Marie Saccurato, who rose to the occasion and brawled with "Holly The Hottie" for 10 tough rounds. Judges scoring seemed a little far fetched, 98-91 twice and 97-92 for Holm, who had to deal with relentless pressure from Saccurato, (12-1-2), obviously a fighter not afraid of a challenge.
Holm who unified the WIBA, WBA, WBA, IBA and IFBA welterweight titles by defeating Saccurato, admits she may need to seek fights out of the friendly confines New Mexico….an interesting move would be to see if Detroit’s hometown girl, Mary Jo Sanders (23-0) would move back down to welterweight to challenge Holm. A fight could break out if either lady could make it out of their backyards.
Veteran Kelsey "Road Warrior" Jeffries (36-9-1) defended her IFBA featherweight title for a sixth time against Rhonda Luna, (12-1-1). Jeffries retained her title by split decision in a ten round bout that opened the night’s show with plenty of action. This fight was 10 rounds of back and forth exchanges that pitted the technically accurate Jeffries against the heavy handed and strong Luna.
For the Super IFBA super bantamweight title, Lisa "Bad News" Brown (13-3-3) did what she does best- brought her trademark "Bad News" to another hometown Albuquerque fighter, Jackie Chavez (9-3-3). Brown defeated Chavez again to take the title and was commanding in this win as she was when she won the WIBA super bantam crown during their first outing.
Coming off a 14-month break from fighting, Chavez again to faced Brown, who used a variety of angles, movement, pressure and body shots to dominate the 10 rounds. Chavez had some good moments in rounds 5 and 6, scoring solidly with cleaner shots. Brown regained her momentum from the eighth round to the final bell but the last four rounds were hard fought with Brown having the edge and being the stronger fighter. Judges awarded a jubilant "Bad News" the unanimous decision, 99-91, 97-93 and 97-94.
Fresquez Productions and "A Ring of Their Own" who are the premier women’s boxing promoters, joined forces to make exciting, hard to predict, crowd pleasing matches, while Fox Sports and Best Damn Sports Show finally put an entire ladies event in the spotlight and let boxing fans and sports fans know women’s boxing is no sideshow. These are tough, skilled and dedicated athletes who come to fight from bell to bell.
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