New York, NY–Last night’s energy at Madison Square Garden leading up to Top Rank’s Teofimo Lopez vs Sandor Martin main event was ignited with the Jr. Middleweight battle between Xander Zayas vs Alexis Salazar. Both contenders went toe to toe in an eight round bout that went down to the wire with true resilience.
The intensity quickly took off in round one with Zayas landing a four punch combo to Salazar that later drove him to unleash a massive left hook rocking Salazar off his feet against the ropes in what should’ve been ruled as a technical knockdown causing an all out roar in the arena.
Twenty-seven year old “Laberinto” attempted to redeem himself in rounds three and four letting off a few shots that landed on the twenty year old prospect though not fazing him enough as Zayas kept coming back working fiercely on Salazar’s body.
Clearly feeling the effects of Zayas’s powerful hooks with swelling underneath both eyes, the vet fighter signaled to his opponent he was good only fueling the Puerto Rican champ to continue on his competitive wrath dominating the remainder of the matchup.
The two fighters went into full blows in the eighth exchanging counterpunches giving the crowd a sure fire moment of excitement with stamina and great sportsmanship but in the end the evident winner by unanimous decision and still the NABO and NABF title holder was Zayas with a new record of 15-0 against the tough Salazar 24-5-0.
Grateful to the hefty support of his Puerto Rican heritage, he thanked his fans in both Spanish and English, “Thank you to all my Puerto Rican fans who came out and are watching back at home, this one’s for you guys. Thank you for all the support and the love. This fight, I gotta go back and see it but um they told me I looked good. There was acouple of moments that I let down my defense but I give myself a nice B+”.
Next up for the tenacious titleholder upcoming matches in March and June just in time to represent the love of his culture as a token of symbolic admiration in celebration of the Puerto Rican Day parade.
