Cejitas’ Valladares, new world boxing champion

Mexican Daniel ‘Cejitas’ Valladares was consecrated as the new International Boxing Federation minimum weight champion, after dethroning Filipino Rene Mark ‘Mighty Mouse’ Cuarto by points, on Friday night at the Deportivo Revolucion in San Nicolas de los Garza, Nuevo Leon.

‘Cejitas’ took two of the three judges’ scorecards in his favor by scores of 115-112 and 116-111, while a third judge saw him fall by 114-113 on an evening, to finally gird himself for the victory and become the sixth Mexican to currently hold a world belt, alongside Canelo Alvarez, Juan Francisco Estrada, Leo Santa Cruz, Emanuel Navarrete and Julio Cesar ‘Rey’ Martinez.

“I promised them that the championship was going to stay in Mexico and I kept it,” said an emotional Valladares after learning of the verdict. “Viva Mexico Cab[…],” he added ecstatically as he celebrated with his team, headed by Juan Antonio ‘Charro’ Hernandez and Adalberto ‘Condor’ Sanchez.

The fight turned out to be eventful. Just in the third round, a headbutt cut the Mexican’s left eyebrow and reminded him of the draw he had against Pedro Taduran in a world championship fight in which he was unlucky. However, now the corner worked the cut well and with a more cerebral boxing he was on his way to victory.

A negative point for Cuarto for problems with the tape that tied the glove towards the end of the fight also conditioned the fight, beyond the issue of the headbutts that were always a conditioning factor in the fight and for which the referee Wes Melton was reprimanding the Tagalog on more than one occasion.

With blood and fire, ‘Cejitas’ took the victory and made it clear that he is going through his best moment as a boxer. On the card, Jalisco’s Christian ‘Chispa’ Medina defeated Alejandro ‘Canito’ Espinoza, Roniel Iglesias defeated Agustín Lugo and José ‘Increíble’ Macías defeated Roberto Zariñana, all on the scorecards.