Matias Captures IBF Title.
Subriel Matias becomes the eighth man from Puerto Rico to capture a title at the 140-pound division.
He captured the IBF 140-pound world title by stopping Jeremias Ponce of Argentina in a fan-friendly slugfest that ended with Ponce's corner calling a halt to about. Following a snooze fest of an undercard at the Amory in Minneapolis. Ponce came out like a shot out of canon, unleashing on Matias. Throwing about 100 punches in the opening round and waking up Matias. Matias got going in the second, mixing up head and body shots. Ponce kept up the work rate, but the Puerto Ricans landed the more powerful shots. While both were scoring with plenty of clean licks. It was evident that Matias had much more sting on his punches. That became evident after an explosive closing 10 to 15 seconds of the third. The fourth round started, and Ponce looked to be wearing down, and by the fifth, Matias was rocking and unleashing on the fatiguing Ponce. A body shot dropped Ponce late in the fifth. He was able to beat the count with ease and survived the last few seconds of the fifth. But the corner from Argentina had seen enough and informed the ref their man had seen enough. Moving Matias's record to 19-1 (19).
In the co-main event hometown hero Jamal "Shango" James did typical "Shngo" things. James controlled a 10-round affair with Alberto Palmetta, also of Argentina. In a mostly one-sided affair, James controlled the fight from the upside and outworked his determined opponent. With exceptions in the third and 10th rounds, where Palmetta was able to slip onto the inside and put combinations together and slow James down, the Minneapolis native remained in complete control. James had been inactive since October of 2021 when he suffered his second career loss, a 9th-round stoppage to Radzhab Butaev. James improved his record to 28-2 (12).
In the opening bout of the Showtime-televised portion of Saturday nights card, Elvis Rodriguez rolled over Joseph Ardono. In a bout that was a must-win for each man who had suffered losses in their development. After a slow start, the action picked up, and Rodriguez ended up needing each of his two knockdowns to eke out a split-decision victory over Adorno by scores of 97-91 and then a much too close 95-93 and an absolutely ridiculous even card of 94-94. The Minnesota state commission has been egregious in several of these cards at the Armory over the last two years.
