Garcia defeats Herrera to retain light welterweight titles

Sport360 staff 16:00 16/03/2014
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  • Still champion: Garcia retained his two light welterweight titles.

    Danny Garcia kept his undefeated record intact by taking a majority decision over challenger Mauricio Herrera in a light welterweight title fight.

    Garcia improved to 28-0 and retained his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles with a hard-fought victory that two judges scored 116-112 and the third had even, 114-114.

    American Garcia, who is of Puerto Rican ancestry, had the crowd of 10,100 at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez on his side. Herrera, also a US citizen, dropped to 20-4 with seven knockouts. 

    Garcia was coming off a unanimous decision win over Argentina's Lucas Matthysse in September.

    This was his fifth defense of the WBC crown he won by taking a unanimous decision over Mexico's Erik Morales in 2012. It was also be the fourth defense of the WBA title Garcia took from England's Amir Khan with a fourth-round stoppage in 2012.

    Earlier in the evening Deontay Wilder moved one step closer to achieving his goal of becoming the heavyweight champion of the world as he stopped close friend Malik Scott in the first round. 

    A wicked left-hook sent Scott to the canvas and he was unable to beat the count as Wilder recorded his 32nd victory – all of which have come via a stoppage. 

    The Bronze Bomber is still yet to go beyond four rounds but is now set to face the winner of Bermane Stiverne and Chris Arreola who face off on May 10 for the WBC title. 

    On the other side of the Atlantic, Kell Brook came through his world title warm-up with a polished, if unspectacular, eighth-round stoppage of courageous Mexican Alvaro Robles at the Echo Arena in Liverpool.

    Brook is now the mandatory challenger for the IBF welterweight title and will face the winner of Shawn Porter-Paulie Malignaggi in the summer after avoiding a potential banana skin on Saturday.

    Meanwhile, two-time world title challenger Kevin Mitchell moved closer to a third shot at one of the four major lightweight belts after stopping Mikheil Avakyan inside two rounds. 

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