While Amanda Serrano made history on the Danny Garcia vs. Shawn Porter undercard two contenders emerged from heavyweight and welterweight.
Yordenis Ugas easily defeated Cesar Barrionuevo in a WBC welterweight title eliminator by unanimous decision (119-109, 120-108, 120-108). The fight took place on the televised co-main event of the September 8 Showtime card from the Barclays Center.
Although the power-punching Barrionuevo tried his best to get some form of offensive rhythm going, Ugas established his body punches from the start and continued tagging him and cutting off the ring. Ugas faced little trouble throughout all 12 rounds, landing a variation of right hands, but was unable to get a stoppage win.
With the win, Ugas gets one step closer to fighting for a welterweight world title, potentially against either IBF titleholder Errol Spence Jr. or the winner of Garcia vs. Porter for the vacant WBC title.
In the television opener, Adam Kownacki and Charles Martin went to war late in their heavyweight. Kownacki fended off a late rally by Martin to ultimately win on all three judges? scorecards 96-94.
Kownacki started the fight off well, virtually winning every round in the first half. Kownacki hit a bit of a wall as Martin started to land more and more power punches. The 10th round was a thrilling exchange of slow, yet powerful, punches with each man getting hurt. First, it came with Martin getting hurt and having to hold on the top rope, but then Kownacki got hurt late with numerous hooks thrown by Martin.
In the end, Kownacki scored the biggest win of his career so far and has put himself one step closer to fighting for a heavyweight title as Kownacki came into the fight ranked in the top 10 at heavyweight by the WBC.