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Former Olympian Alberto Palmetta stopped previously unbeaten Erik Vega in the 10th and final round of tonight’s ShoBox main event from Sloan, Iowa, improving to 13-1 (9 KO) with the victory.
Palmetta, 29, represented Argentina in Rio and lost in the opening round, but he had the better and more developed skills in this fight. The 24-year-old Vega (16-1, 9 KO) had fought exclusively low-level opposition in Mexico and didn’t have much of an amateur career, and the differences showed tonight.
Palmetta led 87-84 on our card at the time of the stoppage, which came on a big flurry in the 10th round, as he didn’t seem to want to leave it up to the judges. Official scores at the time were 86-85, 87-84, and 87-84 for Palmetta.
Joe George SD-10 Marcos Escudero
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This was a pretty questionable decision. George (10-0, 6 KO) was outworked throughout the fight, let himself get pushed to the ropes constantly, and while he had moments of success and did hurt Escudero (10-1, 9 KO) a bit in the ninth round, it’s real hard, I think, to give him five rounds and a draw, let alone seven rounds and a win, but that’s what he got.
Scores were 97-93 and 97-94 for George, and 96-94 for Escudero. BLH had it 98-92 for Escudero, whose pressure and volume controlled the tempo of just about every round. George seemed genuinely surprised to have gotten the nod after the fight, but obviously he’ll take it. And we had a nice little discussion in the live thread, and maybe Steve Farhood and myself — we’re on the same level, no doubt — both scored too many rounds for Escudero. I don’t know. Run it back on ShoBox next year, why not?
Amilcar Vidal Jr TKO-1 Zach Prieto
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Vidal, 23, is hoping to become the first world champion ever from Uruguay. It’s real early to tell, obviously, but he flashed the power here in this win over the 27-year-old Prieto, and Vidal (10-0, 9 KO) is real big at middleweight, standing 6’2”.
Vidal drilled Prieto (9-1, 7 KO) with a left hook pretty late in the opening round, which put Prieto down. Prieto got up quickly, but he was unable to hold on as Vidal pressed for the finish. He put Prieto back down and referee Mark Nelson stepped in to stop it with one second left in the first round.