SANTA YNEZ, California – As Tom Loeffler’s Southern California-based 360 Promotions shifts to Las Vegas’ new Zuffa Boxing promotion, his connected fighters share an urgency to produce impressive auditions for the new gig.
In addition to Saturday main event fighter and top-10-ranked Irish junior middleweight Callum Walsh, light heavyweight Umar Dzambekov and junior welterweight Cain Sandoval are expected to become prominent players for Zuffa’s new tournament.
Stepping up in class against a former two-time super middleweight title challenger in Angulo – who lost to Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and David Benavidez in addition to a non-title bout against Edgar Berlanga – Austria’s Dzambekov was credited with a unanimous decision victory by scores of 80-72, 79-73, 77-75 at Chumash Casino Resort.
After being struck flushly by the veteran’s deliberate offerings and seeming out of sorts at times, Dzambekov 12-0 increased his activity and directed shots at the body to perform more effectively as the bout transpired.
In the seventh and eighth, Dzambekov rocked and jarred Colombia’s Angulo, 28-4, to clinch the outcome.
More impressively, Sandoval, 22, is now 16-0 with 14 KOs after unleashing a battering of more than a dozen punches on wounded Argentina foe Jonathan Jose Eniz, 36-23-1, to finish him 2 minutes, 31 seconds into the second round.
“It’s not an audition to me, because I’m one of the top-10 fighters in the US [at 140lbs] and I feel I deserve to be one of the top dogs in any promotion,” Sandoval said. “I’m ready for the top fights.”
By flashing his willingness to finish, Sandoval impressed.
“It’s kill or be killed,” Sandoval said. “If I was in nature and I saw a prey that was limping, I’m going to finish it. It’s boxing. I don’t get paid for overtime. I clock in, do my job and get out.”
Eight of Sandoval’s knockouts have come before the second round has ended.
Loeffler, who has now relocated his offices into UFC headquarters to work beside Zuffa Boxing head and UFC CEO Dana White, said Saturday’s 360 Promotions card was another step forward for his Zuffa-bound men’s fighters who will compete in bouts across eight weight classes starting early next year.
“We’ve been building all of our fighters on UFC Fight Pass, and Dana likes all of the guys, starting with Callum Walsh,” Loeffler said. “Umar Dzambekov is really coming into his own. Cain Sandoval is a fan favorite. The plan is, all the fighters we’ve built up on UFC Fight Pass will be moved over to Zuffa Boxing.”
The aim is to stage some of the initial Saudi Arabia-funded Zuffa Boxing cards at the UFC Apex inside the UFC’s Las Vegas headquarters, along with other venues still in discussions.
Loeffler, who has promoted heavyweight champions Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, longtime middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and the former “Super Fly” cards on HBO, said he’s thrilled to move his fighters beyond club shows toward the entertaining, competitively balanced bouts Zuffa Boxing is striving for.
A vivid example of that type of action came in a welterweight bout when Freddie Roach-trained Armenian Gor Yeritsyan, 20-2, was upset by Chicago’s Vernon Brown, 14-2-1 (10 KOs), after the pair brawled through the middle rounds, taking turns landing effective head shots.
Brown, 36, then landed a thunderous left on Yeritsyan’s chin in the seventh, scoring a stunning knockdown that set up a finishing flurry of head shots that moved referee David Sullivan to make Brown the winner by technical knockout at 2 minutes, 46 seconds of the seventh.
Brown told a moving tale backstage, speaking of taking three years off due to personal travails, including the death of his brother, Shawn.
“I only started training in January after fighting through all the shit I was going through,” Brown said. “My coach said, ‘You’re either going to do it, or never do it.’”
Brown absorbed some heavy blows and rugged treatment from Yeritsyan before rallying.
“I kept trying to break him down, but it was tough doing it to the body,” Brown said. "[Yeritsyan] kept blocking me, so I started going upstairs, thinking, ‘Fuck it, I’m going up top,’ and I got him. People get so concerned with my right hand, they forget I’ve got a left, but I’m comfortable fighting southpaw."
Brown and his coach said this was his tryout for Zuffa Boxing.
“I want to be involved in whatever’s going to make me better, whatever’s going to take me to the top,” Brown said. “I’m sure they can use another welterweight.”
Following Brown’s thriller, junior bantamweight Daniel “Chucky” Barrera, 9-1-1, of Eastvale, California, produced an effective exhibition of body punching to weather a game effort by Los Angeles’ Basilio Franco as both exchanged mightily until the final bell.
Barrera won by scores of 80-72, 79-73, 79-73.
“We’ve built some exciting fighters and put on some great shows on UFC Fight Pass, and when you turbocharge that with whatever [increased] budgets [like] when we were doing the Klitschko fights and Golovkin and ‘Super Fly’ shows on HBO … I’ll be excited about putting on those kinds of fights again starting next year,” Loeffler said.
In a women’s featherweight bout, Los Angeles’ Roxy Verduzco cruised to a 5-0 record by defeating Celene Roman by three 79-73 scores.
Women’s featherweights Jenelyn Olsim of the Philippines and Jessica Radtke Maltez of Minneapolis opened the card by fighting to a majority draw based on two 38-38 scorecards and another favoring Olsim, 39-37, in her pro debut. Radtke Maltez is now 1-2-2.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.