Jeison Rosario stuns Julian Williams to become unified champion

Jeison Rosario shocked the world tonight by stopping Julian Williams in five rounds and becoming unified champion.

Jeison Rosario is your new unified junior middleweight world champion! Rosario (21-1-1, 14 KOs) scored the massive upset over Julian Williams (27-2-1, 16 KOs) in the FOX main event, stopping the champion in only five rounds of action. With the win Rosario takes home the WBA and IBF world titles.

The fight started out as expected, with Williams boxing sharply and picking off Rosario to the head and body. But Rosario was clearly the bigger and sturdier fighter in the ring, and basically stood his ground and waited for chances to land some thudding counters, which were having a bigger effect on Williams than the other way around. Williams even appeared to be outlanding Rosario by a solid margin, but Rosario’s shots counted for more.

In the second round Williams appeared to pick up where he had left off but he took one clean shot from Rosario that opened up a cut on Williams’ left eyelid, and with blood flowing into his eye Williams he became visibly compromised. Rosario would take advantage by pressing the action and the pressure started wearing on Williams quickly, with Williams breathing through an open mouth by the fourth round.

In the fifth round Rosario would land a hard right hand that would badly shake up Williams. Williams was spotted with wobbly legs and Rosario jumped on the opportunity by winging hard shots, eventually landing a clean right uppercut and a hook that rolled Williams’ eyes back along the ropes, forcing the referee to step in and halt the fight at the 1:37 minute mark. The Philadelphia fans were pretty pissed about the stoppage, but it was clearly a good move on the referee’s part as Williams was in bad, bad shape.

In the aftermath of the fight Williams said that he has a rematch clause with Rosario that he will exercise, saying he’ll see him again real soon. But for now we have a new world champion.

The co-featured bout saw Chris Colbert (14-0, 5 KOs) take the vacant WBA interim super featherweight title by beating Jezzrel Corrales (23-4, 9 KOs) over the distance. Official judges turned one score of 116-111, and two scores 117-110 for Colbert, while BLH scored the fight for Colbert, 116-111.

The fight was anything but an action packed one, with Colbert not pressing himself too much early and Corrales content to fight defense first. That cause a lot of posing as both fighters dared each other to lead, but Colbert was clearly the more willing and was never really affected by Corrales’ punches.

As the fight wore on Corrales began to fade and result to more and more holding, and once he was repeatedly warned about it and close to having a point deducted, a reluctant Corrales ended up getting caught by a right hook on the inside, dropping him to the canvas. Corrales would get up and be able to make it through the rest of the fight without taking too much damage, but Colbert wins and moves on to bigger things going forward.

In the FOX opener prospect Joey Spencer (10-0, 7 KOs) shutout Erik Spring (13-4-2, 1 KOs) on unanimous scores of 60-54. BLH also score the fight 60-54 for Spencer. The fight was largely a cagey affair at range that didn’t have a lot of clean action, but Spencer clearly got the better of it over the six rounds of action.