Joshua Pagan scored the biggest win of his career Thursday in Puerto Rico, his accurate punching carrying the day and leading to a nasty cut over the left eye of Maliek Montgomery, which ultimately ended the proceedings.
Pagan picked up a ninth-round stoppage victory over Montgomery in a fight featured as the main event of a DAZN telecast from Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Pagan, 14-0 (5 KOs), whose punch placement was as important to the result as his power, took a strategic approach to breaking down Montgomery.
“Maliek is tough and he hits hard, so I had to be smart,” Montgomery said after the fight. “I hit him with a sharp uppercut in the second round that cut him, and I took advantage of that.”
Pagan, a 25-year-old from Grand Rapids, Michigan, has Puerto Rican roots. Fighting for the second time on the island, Pagan turned in the best performance of his career. He holds wins over then-unbeaten Roger Hilley and Haskell Rhodes, neither of whom were the caliber of Montgomery. The bout essentially confirms Pagan’s status as a top prospect on the verge of becoming a contender.
The fight was stopped in the ninth round after a Pagan uppercut landed on Montgomery, who had blood flowing down his face from the cut opened by the same punch in Round 2.
“I [saw] the blood, and it was bothering him, so I just kept working it,” Pagan said. “I’m with all the smoke in lightweight. I’m fighting whoever they put in front of me.”
A dejected Montgomery, now 20-2 (18 KOs) after losing his second in a row, has had a rough 2025. A 30-year-old from Macon, Georgia, Montgomery admitted that the blood from the cut over his eye impacted his performance.
“The cut threw things off,” he said.
When asked if he would want a rematch, Montgomery didn’t hesitate: “Absolutely!”
Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.
