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Rey Vargas retained his WBC super bantamweight title over Ronny Rios tonight at the StubHub Center. Vargas came out early and set a frantic pace, and even kept it up for most of the way through as he won an unanimous decision on official scores of 118-110, 118-110, and a closer 115-113. I scored the fight 119-109 for Vargas.
Don't let the wide scores completely fool you, though. This was a pretty good fight as Vargas, although mostly fighting at range, threw a ton of shots from the outside as Rios struggled to close the distance on his opponent, even though Rios did steadily stalk forward. Rios' corner was vocal in between rounds, imploring Rios' to stop following Vargas around the ring, but Rios just couldn't do it and Vargas was more than happy to meet Rios with punches.
In the end Vargas threw about twice as many punches as Rios, and even survived one scary moment about midway through the fight when Rios stunned him with a monster left hook. Vargas survived the moment though, and ultimately had complete control throughout the fight as he keeps his world title. Vargas is really tall and long for a super bantamweight, so future opponents are going to have to find a way to get past that if they want a shot at beating him.