Charles Conwell, John ‘Scrappy’ Ramirez win in Ontario, California

ONTARIO, California – The junior middleweight bout between Charles Conwell and Gerardo Vergara got off to a slow start Saturday, but the decorated American quickly separated himself from the unknown Argentinian southpaw using his superior skills and power to score a seventh-round stoppage win at Toyota Arena.

Conwell, 21-0 (16 KOs), picked up the pace beginning in the fourth round with a dedicated attack to the body and by unleashing compact combinations to the head for a complete whitewash and masterclass of a performance. Conwell impeccably slipped and caught Vergara’s punches and emphatically ended the fight in the seventh with a hellacious onslaught of punches that was set up with a thunderous left hook that momentarily stunned Vergara, 20-1 (13 KOs).

It was all downhill from there, as Conwell then teed off with seven unanswered left hooks before referee Thomas Taylor mercifully stopped the action at the 2:51 mark of the seventh.

Conwell connected with 157 of 489 punches while Vergara landed with 79 of 480.

“I felt good about the performance,” said Conwell. “There are always things I can improve on and get better. I broke the guy down and got him out of there like I said I was. He was tough and came with a winning mindset, but we got him out of there.

“I appreciate Golden Boy for keeping me active in the ring. I’m looking forward to a big 2025. These performances you’re seeing, it’s only the beginning. I can only get better from here. I want big fights in 2025 against the champions. I know I can beat Vergil Ortiz Jnr.”

Conwell-Vergara served as the co-main event to the welterweight clash between Alexis Rocha and Raul Curiel.

Against Jimenez, Ramirez had been outboxed.

But against Saturday night’s counterpart, Ephraim Bui, a familiar sparring partner, Ramirez outslugged the fellow 115-pound fighter to score a 10-round unanimous decision win.

Judges awarded Ramirez, 14-1 (9 KOs), with scores of 97-93, 97-93, 97-93.

Bui (10-1, 8 KOs), a southpaw, started the fight off strongly but suffered a cut across his right eyelid in the second round due to an accidental clash of heads. The injury didn’t deter Bui from dialing up the pressure, but he paid for it when he came into close quarters, courtesy of crisp uppercuts from Ramirez.

Ramirez blasted Bui with seven straight eye-catching shots in a short sequence with a minute left in the fourth round as blood streamed down Bui’s face.

Bui proved he had a strong beard, however, and didn’t allow Ramirez to mount much more momentum in the fifth as he mixed it up in the middle of the ring.

Bui’s problematic right eye started to swell in the sixth as Ramirez kept pushing the pace, one big punch at a time.

Beginning in the seventh, Ramirez started to separate himself from Bui with the heavier and cleaner shots, slugging and, at times, outboxing his way to a bounce-back win.

Ramirez connected with 176 of 501 punches while Bui landed with 175 of 705.

Additionally, 35-five-year old former world titleholders Marlen Esparza and Arely Muciño came into their 10-round junior bantamweight contest trying to recover from crushing losses, and it was Esparza who regained control of her career once again in the crossroads clash.

The seesaw fight was a back-and-forth affair featuring many close, tough-to-score rounds, and neither fighter really celebrated after the final bell sounded following their physical affair.

Esparza, however, pulled away in the second half of the fight and was awarded scores of 98-92, 98-92, 97-93 for the unanimous decision win. Esparza connected with 145 of 460 punches while Muciño landed 113 of 486.

Esparza, 15-2 (1 KO), a 2012 United States bronze medalist and a former unified flyweight champion, missed weight in her second consecutive fight and was coming into the fight with a new corner headed by multiple-time title challenger Rocky Juarez. She last fought in April and lost her 112-pound titles to Gabriela Celeste Alaniz via split decision.

Muciño, 32-5-2 (11 KOs), a four-time titleholder from Mexico, was fighting for the first time since October 2023, when she was knocked out by Gabriela Fundora inside five rounds to lose her flyweight title.

Starting the DAZN stream, Victor Morales made his junior lightweight debut and returned from a 15-month layoff against Ivan Guardado, but the bout ended anticlimactically, as the fight was stopped after the ringside physician deemed Guardado unfit to continue due to a damaged right eye 1 second into the eighth round of their 10-round fight.

It was officially ruled an eighth round TKO win for Morales, who landed 169 of 417 punches, while Guardado connected with 90 of 297.

Morales, 20-0-1 (10 KOs), got out of the gates with a slow start, eating several thunderous looping left hooks from Guardado, 16-3-1 (6 KOs), and surviving some scary moments. But Morales quickly mounted a rally to get back into the fight with a sharp jab.

Guardado was game throughout the bout, and it would have been an interesting finish, but his fast-swelling right eye started to give him problems. The eye was inspected before the sixth round, and again in the eighth, before the fight was called off. Guardado suffered his second straight loss, with the other being a seventh-round stoppage against Robson Conceicao in April.

The night of action kicked off on Golden Boy Fight Night series on YouTube. 

Jorge Chavez, 13-0 (8 KOs), dropped Ruben Casero, 12-4 (4 KOs), twice in the final 20 seconds of the first round and never looked back, as he continued the onslaught to pick up a unanimous decision in their junior featherweight matchup.

Chavez was awarded scores of 80-70 from all three judges.

Chavez got the action started with his first knockdown, courtesy of a perfectly timed counter overhand right. Casero got off the canvas only to see Chavez pounce with a four-punch combination that had him slumping into the ropes. Referee Rudy Barragan ruled it a knockdown, and Casero was saved by the bell.

By the end of the bout, Casero was a bloody mess with a busted nose.

Welterweight prospect Ricardo Ruvalcaba (13-0-1, 10 KOs) got eight great rounds of hard work from the very tough and durable Jabin Chollet, 10-2 (8 KOs), and scored a unanimous decision via scores of 80-72, 80-72, 79-73.

Junior featherweight Gael Cabrera, 6-0 (4 KOs), knocked down Garen Diagan, 10-6 (5 KOs), in the closing seconds of the second round with several shots to the side of the head. But after Diagan got back up, he appeared unfit to continue to the eyes of referee Rudy Barragan, who waved off the fight at the 2:59 mark.

Lightweight prospect Joshua Garcia’s upstart career came to a crashing halt as the 22-year-old suffered the first loss of his three-year career against Uhlice Reyes. 

Garcia made his ring walk dressed as the Grinch, but it was Reyes who was in the giving spirit, handing Garcia a beating via three knockdowns en route to a second-round stoppage win.

Reyes, a southpaw, stunned Garcia in the first round and delivered one-way action from there, knocking out Garcia’s mouthpiece and then dropping him in the final seconds of the round. Garcia recovered to make it out of the round, but it didn’t get any better in the second, as he ate another big left hook and fell to the canvas again. Reyes, 3-1 (2 KOs), continued the pressure and dropped Garcia, 9-1 (4 KOs), again, forcing referee Chris Leben to stop the action at the 2:04 mark of the round.Fabian Guzman’s perfect knockout streak remained intact, as the middleweight pummeled Travis Floyd in the first round and floored him 15 seconds into the second stanza. Floyd, 4-12-2 (1 KO) got back up, but he was on wobbly legs. More one-way traffic ensued from Guzman, 6-0 (6 KOs), before referee Thomas Taylor stepped in to stop the action for the second-round TKO.

Welterweight Javier Meza’s professional career got off to a great start as Meza dropped David Music with a big right hand less than a minute into the first round. Meza, 1-0 (1 KO), continued the one-sided beating for the rest of the round, and the fight was waved off by referee Leben with 2 seconds left as Music, 0-2, ate a soundtrack of unanswered shots in the corner.

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter whose work has appeared on ESPN, Fox Sports, USA Today, The Guardian, Newsweek, Men’s Health, NFL.com, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ring Magazine and more. He has been writing for BoxingScene since 2018. Manouk is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.