By Joe Harrison, ringside
On Friday night, in front of a packed house in Cicero Stadium, located just outside Chicago, Illinois, Mauricio Pastrana (34-7-2, 22 KOs) defeated Antonio Escalante (14-2, 9 KOs) by way of an eighth-round knockout. With the victory, Pastrana became the new WBO/NABO super bantamweight champion.
From the start of the bout, Escalante was very aggressive, landing punches at Pastrana’s body and head. Although he was taking a beating, Pastrana showed his massive heart as he continuously tried to battle back. Slowly, Pastrana’s punches became more accurate and were increasingly finding Escalante’s face. By the fourth round, each man was able to land clean punches making the fight very close
Escalante continued to take more and more punches, but he suddenly gained his rhythm back. In the fifth round, Escalante sent Pastrana to the canvas with a powerful right hand followed by quick combinations. Once Pastrana was back on his feet, it was back to business as he staggered Escalante with more clean punches. Then the exchanges continued.
As the rounds passed, both men tried to gain the upper hand, battled back and forth. Escalante got the best of the exchanges, but Pastrana was landing effective punches as well. Then Pastrana was knocked down again in the eighth round. Once again, he rose to his feet only to battle back ferociously. Later in the round, Pastrana landed a huge right hand to Escalante’s chin, viciously knocking him down. Referee Gerald Scott counted to five and then waived the fight off.
In the co-main event, bantamweight Paulino Villalobos (26-35-2, 16 KOs) defeated previously unbeaten Jonas Hernandez (5-1, 2 KOs) by a split decision in an eight-round contest.
Hernandez showed off great skills and speed, but Villalobos was relentless as he stalked Hernandez around the ring throwing both power punches and combinations. Villalobos floored Hernandez in round three, yet Hernandez beat the count and the fight continued. In the eighth round, Hernandez was able to connect his jab more frequently, but it wasn’t quite soon enough.
The judges scored it 77-74, 76-75 for Pastrana, and 74-77 for Hernandez.