Luis Alberto Lopez is on a roll.
The Mexican slugger spoiled Cristian Baez’s perfect record in December. And on Tuesday, he outworked favored Andy Vences to win a split decision in a 10-round junior lightweight fight on the Jose Zepeda-Kendo Castaneda card Tuesday in Las Vegas.
One judge had it for Vences 96-94 but the other two scored it for Lopez by the same score.
The fight had a number of ebbs and flows. Lopez (21-2, 11 KOs) was more active and got off first in the first few rounds. Vences (23-2-1, 12 KOs) picked up his pace and found is rhythm in Round 3 and had strong rounds in the fourth and fifth.
Then came a crazy Round 5. Lopez hurt Vences with a right uppercut about a minute into the round and followed with a barrage of hard, accurate shots that had Vences on the brink of being stopped.
Somehow, the San Jose product survived and held his own in the final three rounds. However, he came up just short.
“I felt I won the fight with my pressure,” Lopez said. “It was a close fight, but I was confident I did enough after the final bell sounded. Credit to Vences. I thought he was knocked out earlier in the fight, but he came back like a warrior.”
Vences has now lost two of his past three fights. He lost a clear decision to tall, slick Albert Bell in June of last year.
“I thought I won a close fight, but I am not going to complain about the decision,” Vences said. “It was a good, close fight. No excuses. I prepared well for 10 hard rounds. …
“I listened to my corner and got back in the fight. I thought I closed strong and did enough to win. I’ll come back to fight another say. This isn’t the end for ‘El Tiburon.’”
Lopez, a former soccer player who started boxing only five years ago, has four consecutive fights since he was outpointed by unbeaten Ruben Villa in June of last year.
In other preliminaries, lightweight prospect Andres Cortes (13-0, 7 KOs) of Las Vegas survived a nasty cut and fourth-round knockdown to defeat Alejandro Salinas (10-4, 9 KOs) of Youngstown, Ohio, by a unanimous decision in an eight-round bout. The scores were: 76-75, 79-73 and 77-74.
And Gabriel Muratalla (4-0, 3 KOs) of Fontana, California, defeated Sergio Lopez (4-6-3, 0 KOs) of Las Vegas by a unanimous decision in a four-round junior featherweight bout. The scores were 40-36, 40-36 and 39-37.