Wilder Retains Heavyweight Title with TKO of Arreola

Deontay Wilder was his typical dominant self on Saturday night as he ripped apart Chris Arreola and retained his title via TKO. Wilder’s long reach and height, coupled with his crushing knockout power, kept the smaller Arreola at bay throughout and in reality, the Los Angelino never stood a chance.

Wilder rattled the challenger’s head with dozens of stiff left jabs and jarring straight rights. Whenever Arreola was able to get inside – which was seldom – “The Bronze Bomber” drilled him with uppercuts. Arreola is as tough as they come and he proved it against the defending WBC heavyweight champ, though he likely fought one round too many.

Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) dropped “The Nightmare” with a combo of punches to the face in the fourth. Arreola was hurt badly and nearly stopped in the frame, but he was saved by the bell. Wilder backed off a little in rounds five and six and toyed with his battered and bloodied opponent, dancing in the clinch and clowning Arreola whenever he could, though he never went overboard with the antics.

With his left eye closed and blood streaming from a cut around his right eye, Arreola (36-5-1, 31 KOs) needed to change things around in a hurry, but Wilder disallowed all of his attempts. The Alabama native electrified the local fans when he poured on the offense in the eighth. A series of rights and lefts ricocheted off Arreola’s dome and in between rounds eight and nine, the challenger’s corner threw in the towel.

Wilder reportedly broke his right hand and tore his right bicep in the brawl, which headlined a Premier Boxing Champions card on Fox.

Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Erickson Lubin pitched a shutout over eight rounds against Ivan Monteno (20-2, 8 KOs) and won a unanimous decision. Lubin (16-0, 11 KOs) rocked the Mexican several times in the bout but was never able to put him away and instead had to settle for the win on the cards. All three judges saw it for Lubin 80-72.

Felix Diaz, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist, scored a minor upset in the opening bout of the telecast when he edged Sammy Vasquez for a controversial decision. Diaz (18-1, 8 KOs) put the former war veteran through an arduous boxing clinic as he used his much better movement and speed to befuddle Vasquez throughout.

While Vasquez (21-1, 15 KOs) won some of the early rounds, Diaz poured it on during the second half of the contest and appeared to be well on his way to a unanimous decision win. However, the battle was initially declared a majority draw when two of the three judges had it 95-95 even though Vasquez lost a point in the 10th for repeatedly losing his mouthpiece. The third scored saw it for Diaz 96-94. After the crowd angrily booed the decision, the officials noticed they had made a mistake and re-tallied the scorecards and changed the official verdict to a win for Diaz. The new scores were 96-93 and 95-94 (twice) for Diaz.