Russell crushes Gonzalez to claim WBC title
Gary Russell Jr. (26-1, 15 KOs) dethroned WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez (57-9, 48 KOs) by scoring a 4th round stoppage on Saturday night at the Palms Casino Resort, in Las Vegas.
Southpaw Russell completely dominated the fight, flooring the Mexican three times en route to claiming the 126 pound title.
The American challenger landed mostly jabs in the first couple of rounds, but he was doing a great job of getting in and out to avoid getting hit by Gonzalez’s much slower shots.
By the third, they was both trading power shots and a left-right combination knocked Gonzalez down at the end of the round.
The champion got back to his feet but he never really recovered from those punches.
At the start of the 4th, Russell unloaded a flurry of power punches which dropped Gonzalez to the canvas for the second time in the fight.
Gonzalez again got back up, but he was on unsteady legs and when the action resumed Russell sent him down for a third time with a left hook and right uppercut before referee Tony Weeks stopped the bout at 0:57 of the round.
Also on the card, Jermell Charlo (26-0, 11 KOs) outpointed Vanes Martirosyan (35-2-1, 21 KOs) by a unanimous decision in a 10 round light middleweight bout.
Both men had their moments and landed clean shots.
American contender Charlo used a lot of movement and landed more jabs while Martirosyan advanced and landed the harder shots in a close fight.
Armenia born Martirosyan was cut over his left eye from an accidental head-butt in the 8th, but he overcame that and fought well in the round.
Neither seemed to establish a clear dominance and pull away but all the judges scored the fight in favour of Charlo, who remained unbeaten, by scores of 97-93, 96-94 and 96-94.