San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas thrilled his hometown followers with a picture-perfect efficiency, using a textbook left-hook to drop, cease and upset Rafael Pedroza within the second spherical to win his debut on ShoBox Friday night time in the primary occasion dwell on Showtime from Boeing Heart at Tech Port in San Antonio, Texas.
Cardenas decked Pedroza twice within the second spherical, each on leaping, picturesque left hooks that landed cleanly and catapulted Pedroza to the canvas. On the second knockdown, as Pedroza landed awkwardly on his aspect, referee Rafael Ramos waved the combat off instantly at 1:22 of the second body.
“The primary knockdown I hit him with a proper hand to the physique and he dropped his guard, so I got here again up on high,” Cardenas mentioned.
“I seen his protection wasn’t that tight, so I threw it and when it landed, I dropped him. And I knew it might occur once more, so I made a decision to do it once more and that ended it. He was an undefeated fighter approaching Showtime, so it’s my greatest win, for positive. From right here, we’re onto greater and higher stuff. I’m positive Showtime will need me again once more after that. I would like the champions.”
It was a nightmarish consequence for Pedroza, who was preventing for the primary time outdoors of his native Panama and entered Friday with excessive expectations, undefeated and ranked fifth within the WBA at tremendous bantamweight after a extremely adorned newbie profession. As an alternative, it was Cardenas, preventing in his hometown for the ninth time, who appeared relaxed and poised and had the night time of his life to enhance to 22-1 with 12 KOs as Pedroza fell to 15-1 with 11 KOs.
Cardenas, who was capable of get within Pedroza’s six-inch attain benefit, earned a career-best victory at The Alamodome in July 2022 when he decisioned Michel Banquez in Showtime Boxing streaming motion previous Mark Magsayo vs. Rey Vargas. Now he has one other spectacular efficiency so as to add to his listing of rising achievements.
“I used to be ranked in each group on this planet for greater than a 12 months, however I didn’t get the prospect then,” Cardenas mentioned. “However now that I’ve made a press release, I’ll take the WBA (champ), WBC, no matter. My plan was to place the boxing world on discover, by going out and exhibiting the world who I’m. I consider I did that.”