By Rocky Morales and Miguel Maravilla at ringside

Mahonry Montes (33-6-1) won a hard earned but well deserved split decision victory over Francisco Santana (24-6-1, 12KO). Montes was the aggressor for most of the bout and scored a knockdown in the fifth round that proved vital to winning the decision. After watching three very skillful young fighters with extensive amateur success from Russia and Uzbekistan all win decisively by knockouts in the previous three fights, it was a stark and mostly unwelcome contrast to see ten rounds of more elementary brawling from the seemingly more limited veteran Latino fighters. They did manage to bring the crowd to life in the last thirty seconds by going toe to toe but not so much for the 1770 seconds prior. Judges score the bout 96-93 and 95-94 in favor of Montes and, inexplicably, if not criminally, 97-92 for Santana.

Maxim Dadashev (7-0, 6KO) very impressively disposed of Bilal Mahasin (9-4-1, 1KO) with a sensational one punch third round knockout. Prior to the knockout, it was a tactical fight with Dadashev getting the better of Mahasin but nothing had happened to suggest a dramatic knockout was approaching. Dadashev, hailing from St. Petersburg Russia but now fighting out of Oxnard and trained by Robert Garcia, cleverly fronted with a right cross but instead threw a vicious left hook that landed on the button. Bahasin went down sideways like a tree falling. The referee started a count but saw Bahasin was in no condition to continue and stopped the fight. Time of the stoppage was 2:09 in the third round of a scheduled eight round welterweight bout.

Alexander Besputin (7-0, 5KO) made it look easy against one time Amir Khan conqueror, Breidis Prescott (30-10, 20KO), in an eight round welterweight bout. Russian born southpaw Besputin not only won every round but also floored Prescott with a perfectly timed right hook counter. All three judges scored the bout the same at 80-71 in favor of Besputin.

In the opening bout from the Stub Hub Center in Carson, California 2016 Gold medalist Fazliddin Gaibnazarov (1-0, 1 KO) of Uzbekistan made his pro debut with a stoppage over Victor Vasquez (7-3, 3 KOs) as he came off the canvas to score the knockout. Gaibnazarov was down in the opening round but in round two, Gaibnazarov dropped Vasquez with a left as he got up but could not continue. The referee stopped the fight at 1:28 of round two.