WBC super-lightweight champion Chantelle Cameron enjoyed a dream Vegas debut with a dominant five-round win over Puerto Rican veteran Melissa Hernandez at the Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay on Saturday night.
Cameron’s blend of speed, youth and vitality simply proved too much for the 41-year-old challenger. From the outset, the outcome seemed inevitable as the Northampton fighter riddled Hernandez with right hands in an assertive opening round.
It was one-way traffic and Hernandez could do little more than survive. Early in the third, Cameron sent Hernandez into the ropes with a stiff right hand. Cameron punished her challenger on the ropes with the challenger’s hopes rapidly diminishing.
Late in the fourth, referee Celestino Ruiz awarded Cameron a knockdown after Hernandez fell into the ropes under an onslaught. Hernandez disagreed with the call and came back firing, but she was completely outgunned as the sharper Cameron battered her with impunity.
Referee Ruiz intervened in the fifth with Hernandez not seeming especially hurt, but with only more rounds of punishment ahead.
Earlier on the Devin Haney vs Jorge Linares undercard, slick South African southpaw Azinga Fuzile proved too hot to handle for Brentwood’s Martin J. Ward, scoring a seventh-round stoppage in their IBF super-featherweight title eliminator.
Photo: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing USA.
After a quiet opening, the South African scored an official knockdown with a right hook in the fourth when Ward’s gloves touched down. Much worse was to follow in the seventh as Ward sustained a cut left eye from a head clash and was dropped heavily with a hefty right hand. Bloodied, he rose for more, but his corner stopped the fight with Ward having suffered an apparent left knee injury.
The classy Fuzile will now face the winner of the vacant IBF title bout between former conqueror Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov and Kenichi Ogawa, scheduled for July.
Meanwhile, former Irish amateur star Jason Quigley rallied to eke out a majority decision win over Shane Mosley Jr. Scores were 97-93, 96-94 and 95-95. It was a close call, but Quigley’s late pressure and resolve impressed the judges after Mosley appeared to build an early lead.
Main image: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing USA.