Jesus Cuellar: The Fight I Would Like is Abner Mares!

SHELTON, Wash. – Aggressive-minded Jesus “El Jinete” Cuellar (26-1, 20 KOs), of Santa Fe, Argentina, won his ninth in a row and retained his interim WBA Featherweight Championship for a third time with a rock-solid fifth-round knockout over fellow southpaw Ruben “Kanelito” Tamayo (23-5-4, 17 KOs), of Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, in the Goossen Promotions main event Saturday on SHOWTIME BOXING on SHOWTIME EXTREME from Little Creek Casino Resort in Shelton, Wash.

“Cuellar showed why he is an exciting featherweight,’’ SHOWTIME boxing historian and expert analyst, Steve Farhood, said afterward.

“He tries to knock you out with every punch. He’s crude but relentless, and was way too strong for Tamayo.

 “I can’t wait to see how Cuellar matches up against some of the other featherweights in the top 10.’’

Cuellar, 28, a devastating body puncher ranked No. 1 in the WBA, dropped Tamayo twice in the fourth and once in the fifth. The first knockdown came from a right to the chin; the others were from body shots. After the last knockdown, referee Mark Nelson stopped the match at 1:48 of the fifth.

“I’m happy with my performance tonight,’’ said Cuellar, who averaged 100 punches a round. “My team and I worked very hard in training camp and it showed. I corrected mistakes from my last fight. Sometimes, I get too anxious in there and I come out too strong. I feel that this time I was a little bit more patient.

“I’m very happy I could close out the year headlining on national television on SHOWTIME and also on Argentina’s public channel. That was a dream come true.’’

Cuellar doesn’t know what’s next, but says he wouldn’t mind a fight against former three-time world champion Abner Mares.

“I really wanted to make a good impression on the fans tonight and I’m looking forward to fighting often again next year,’’ Cuellar said. “There are a lot of possibilities, but I think the fighter I’d like to fight is Abner Mares, who I met recently in Las Vegas. He approached me and we took a picture together and then he tweeted it out, saying he wanted to fight me. Well, I’d like to fight him, too. It would be a really exciting fight for the fans.’’

Cuellar, a six-time Argentine national amateur champion and two-time South American amateur champion, is unbeaten as a professional since suffering his lone loss in October 2011.

His trainer, Robert Garcia, says Cuellar is still a work-in-progress and will continue to improve.

“We haven’t seen the best of Cuellar, not by a longshot,’’ Garcia said. "He’s making good progress from fight to fight, but still has things to learn. Little by little, though, he is getting better. There is not a fighter as dedicated as he is. He’s very disciplined, trains hard, spars hard and does everything to the extreme.

“With more time, I really expect great things out of him.’’