Yamileth Mercado Stifles Ramla Ali; Arturo Cardenas Clips Danny Barrios

PHOENIX – Yamileth Mercado works to smother her opponents.

They attempt a punch. She sends back five. They raise their fist. She unleashes a combination, even punching the foe’s cocked arm.

So it went again Saturday night, as the Mexican WBC junior featherweight women’s titleholder successfully defended her belt for the seventh time by defeating Somalia’s Ramla Ali by unanimous decision scores of 98-92, 98-93, 97-93 at the Footprint Center.

Mercado (24-3) retained the belt by stifling Ali’s planned counterpunching attempts, relying on the flurries to win over the judges and emphasize that she was the more active fighter.

Mercado, 26, has owned the belt since 2019.

Her interest in swinging wild flurries to answer any pressure has been a signature move, and she displayed her ability to brawl in the early rounds by sending rapid combinations Ali’s way.

It provided a puzzling challenge for the contender, who found herself frozen from going offensive in the fifth.

Ali (9-2) found some rhythm in the sixth by counterpunching, and trainer Manny Robles urged her to increase the action.

But with just two knockouts on her ledger, Ali’s power was not enough to worry Mercado.

As the stakes heightened in the ninth, the pair closed in and were nearly wrestling to position for their punches, as Mercado emerged with the type of triumph she knows well.

Phoenix’s inspired crowd filled in impressively for the first DAZN-broadcast bout, won by Mexico’s Arturo Cardenas by majority decision over local fighter Danny Barrios, 95-95, 97-93, 96-94.

Glendale, Arizona’s Barrios (15-1) was a bit too wild in his deliveries toward openings that Cardenas (14-0-1) veered from or blocked in the middle rounds, while Cardenas pounced on his opportunities.

And that trend led to Cardenas finding Barrios with a sharp right and hard left in the seventh, knocking Barrios off balance.

That prompted Barrios to go rugged, and the exchanges throughout the eighth were the most lively of the bout. In the ninth and 10th, Barrios landed the best punches, but he also absorbed other lesser blows and danced away from the action, drawing jeers from the raucous crowd. 

In bantamweight action, Gabriel Muratalla posted a unanimous decision triumph over Mexico’s Carlos Fontes, 79-73, 78-74, 77-75, to raise his unbeaten record to 12-0.

By remaining busier and delivering the more impressive blows, Muratalla built a lead through three rounds and cruised from there. At 30, Muratalla would do well to enhance his power punching since he failed to greatly hurt the veteran Fontes (23-4-1).

Muratalla, of Fontana, California, is the older brother of unbeaten lightweight Raymond Muratalla (20-0, 16 KOs), the No. 2-rated fighter in his weight class according to the WBO and WBC.

Phoenix’s Fabian Rojo opened his bout with a thunderous left hand to the nose that dropped Albuquerque’s Daniel Gonzalez in the starting seconds of the first round. The left-hander smartly kept unleashing the lefts to overwhelm Gonzalez, whose night it was supposed to be.

It was over just 73 seconds into the second round when the 22-year-old Rojo followed a second knockdown by ending matters with two straight lefts to the head, the final one a crushing blow to the jaw that moved Rojo to 9-0 with 7 KOs, while Gonzalez fell to 5-2. 

Mexico’s Leonardo Rubalcava, 21, opened the card by relying on his punching prowess to discourage and defeat the smaller William Flenoy by unanimous decision scores of 60-54, 59-55, 59-55.

Rubalcava, currently residing in the Southern California town of Jurupa Valley, improved to 8-0 by landing a steady array of power rights that defused the efforts by Flenoy (3-4-1) to answer impressively, although the 33-year-old Cleveland fighter did expose some defensive flaws that Rubalcava will certainly need to start addressing in training.