Unbeaten Magdaleno flaunts quickness, KOs Maldonado
It wasn’t the usual quick ending to which Jessie Magdaleno has grown accustomed. But the unbeaten Las Vegan continues to look impressive as he rises in the super bantamweight ranks.
The 21-year-old dominated a game but overmatched Henry Maldonado, scoring a fourth-round technical knockout Saturday at the Hard Rock Hotel.
“I was a little overanxious,” Magdaleno said. “I was trying to get him out of there early.”
Magdaleno (15-0, 11 knockouts) was too quick for Maldonado (16-3), landing combinations and knocking him down three times in four rounds, including twice in round two.
“I knew he couldn’t deal with my speed, so I tried to pick up the pace,” Magdaleno said. “I hit him with some good shots, and I knew with my speed and my power it was just going to be a matter of time.”
Maldonado, 25, had one good moment, that coming in the third round when he won an exchange and tagged Magdaleno with a solid left to the face.
“That got my attention,” Magdaleno said. “I got a little too careless, and I need to learn to not leave myself open like that.”
But he quickly restored order, nailing Maldonado with a left hand midway through the fourth round and sending him to the canvas. Magdaleno was on the verge of dropping Maldonado again when referee Russell Mora stopped the fight with seven seconds left.
“We worked on his speed and his boxing skills for this fight, and the sparring we had really paid off,” Magdaleno’s trainer, Pat Barry, said. “He was a little keyed up at the start. But once he settled down, he was fine.”
The fight was Magdaleno’s first without older brother Diego in his corner. Diego Magdaleno (23-1, nine KOs), who was watching from the stands Saturday, left Barry last month to sign with manager Frank Espinoza. To Jessie Magdaleno’s credit, he never let his brother’s situation distract him.
“It’s been single-minded focus the entire time,” Barry said. “I’m very proud of Jessie.”
The challenge for Top Rank is to find an opponent who can push Magdaleno.
“Whoever they put in front of me, that’s what I’ll deal with,” he said. “Whatever Top Rank decides is fine. I just want to stay active and keep working and keep improving.”
Saturday’s main event lost most of its luster as Juan Carlos Sanchez lost his IBF super flyweight title on the scales Saturday morning after being 2 ounces over the 115-pound limit for his bout with Roberto Sosa. Sanchez ultimately prevailed in the ring, winning a 12-round unanimous decision.
Judges CJ Ross and Burt Clements had Sanchez winning 117-110, while Patricia Morse-Jarman had it 116-111.
Sanchez (16-1-1) weighed 116 pounds during Friday’s weigh-in and eventually got down to 115.2 and was told by the IBF he would be good to go. But the Sosa camp protested to the IBF, and at 7 a.m. Saturday, the sanctioning body told Sanchez it could not make an exception for him and stripped him of his title.
“Our rules state that the fighter must make the weight limit,” IBF senior vice president Aaron Kizer said. “We gave (Sanchez) two hours to lose the weight he needed to. When he didn’t, we had no choice but to take his belt.”
Sanchez dominated the first half of the fight, using his jab effectively to keep Sosa off him. Sosa continued to press but couldn’t land the clean shot he needed to hurt Sanchez.
With 38 seconds left in the final round, Sosa got too reckless, and Sanchez knocked him down with a short, straight left to put the finishing touch on Sosa’s first loss in 25 professional fights.
Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.