Brian Norman Jr made a profitable first protection of his WBO welterweight title, stopping Derrieck Cuevas late within the third spherical.
Norman (27-0, 21 KO) hadn’t fought since Could 2024, when he beat Giovani Santillan to win the then-interim WBO belt, and he did get cracked a bit within the opening spherical, it appeared, by Cuevas (27-2-1, 19 KO).
However Norman was in a position to take over from there, hurting Cuevas in return after which stumbling him within the second spherical, earlier than dropping him late within the third. Cuevas confirmed no actual want to proceed, and referee Thomas Taylor stopped the struggle at 2:59.
“It was simply getting again into it. I’ve been out for 10 months, but it surely wasn’t a battle in any respect,” Norman stated. “Nice opponent, by no means been stopped, solely obtained one defeat, and also you see what I did with him. By no means been down, by no means been stopped, look what I did to him.”
“I’m not only a champ however a future legend within the recreation, it’s the Brian Norman Present now,” he added, saying he needs to make unification fights going ahead, and that he’ll have a watch on the Jaron Ennis vs Eimantas Stanionis winner after their April 12 unification.
On the prelims, Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington stayed undefeated with a 3rd spherical stoppage win over Enrique Vivas. Featherweight prospect Carrington (15-0, 9 KO) and Vivas (23-4, 12 KO) each landed some good photographs within the first spherical, however Vivas didn’t hold his momentum and Carrington was just about touchdown at will, scoring a second spherical knockdown earlier than forcing a stoppage early within the third.
Emiliano Vargas improved to 13-0 (11 KO), because the 20-year-old tremendous light-weight knocked out Giovannie Gonzalez within the second spherical.
