By Jhonny Gonzalez

At the Estadio Beto Avila in Veracruz, Mexico, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez (35-0-1, 26KOs) won a twelve round unanimous decision over Lovemore Ndou (48-12-2, 31KOs). Alvarez retains the WBC's silver junior middleweight title. Ndou is the IBO's welterweight champion. The scores were 119-109, 120-109 and 119-109.

Both of them came out jabbing in the first round. There was a lot of respect by both boxers. Neither guy really had an edge. The second started in the same way as the first. Canelo began to let his hands go a little bit at the end of the second.

Canelo started pressing in the third. Ndou did well with his counter punches. Canelo again let his hands go at the end of the third. He often backed Ndou up against the ropes and threw combos to the body. More action coming from Canelo in the fourth. Ndou was not active enough. He through a jab but allowed Canelo to back him to the ropes and unleash combos. Most of the punches were blocked but they were still scoring points with the judges.

Canelo was getting more and more active in the fifth, sixth and seventh. Ndou tried to fight back with some punches in the eight. He just couldn't land enough of them to do any damage.

The action slowed down at the start of Canelo the ninth. Canelo was working the jab. He let his hands go as soon as Ndou tried to mount any offense. The final three rounds had Canelo pressing and Ndou mostly backing up and being defensive. There wasn't enough offense coming from Ndou to make a dent on the much younger Canelo.

To his credit, Ndou displayed his well known chin by standing and trading with Canelo during several points in the fight.

Former champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (41-2, 34KOs) stopped Sergio Manuel Medina (35-4, 20KOs) in the seventh round with a combination of punches. Ponce De Leon closed the show with a hard combination of punches, including a hard hook to the body. Medina beat the count but the ref had seen enough and stopped it.

Ponce De Leon continues his run for a rematch with Juan Manuel Lopez, the current featherweight champion of the WBO. It should be noted that Juanma stopped Medina in one round back in 2008. Ponce De Leon has won seven bouts since the first round TKO loss to Juanma in 2008.