Latest / Between The Rounds Official / Han's Controversial Decision, Serrano's Record, Juarez's Masterclass | MVPW-03 Post-Fight Breakdown
Transcript
- Sarah: Okay, so Saturday night we had four world title fights, and four champions retained their titles. It was a record-breaking gate at El Paso County Coliseum. But the scorecards ⁓ maybe told a little bit of a different story. Now, one fight a masterclass. One fight was exactly what everyone was expecting. one was closer than scorecards actually suggested. the main event? Well, that actually needs a whole conversation. So we're gonna break down all four fights on the main card, but we're gonna actually start with the one that everyone's still actually talking about, and that was the main event. So Stephanie Hahn retains her title. She's now 13-0. Her third successful title defense. ⁓ It was a decision. We had 96-94, 96-94, and 95-95. Now one actually scored it a draw, and not one judge scored it in favor of Holm, and Holmes' corner went ballistic. So here's what actually happened in the fight. Now, hand certainly st started fast. She found that right hand early on, and that was the secret weapon that really won her the first fight. Now, in the second round, she also had a some great success with that sharp right hand. there were moments where, you know, you could tell that Holm was, ⁓ know, could feel the power of the shot, but And and that was probably Hans's best moment in the entire fight. She felt it looked like she was in control through the first three or four rounds, really setting the pace, landing the cleaner shots. Holm started to adjust, and that's where the fight actually changed. Now Holmes used lateral movement to circle her towards her right. She forced Han to move her to her power side. And that was deliberate and it was really, really disciplined. And listen, it worked. Her straight left started landing with real consistency from around round from round five onwards. Hans Corner were really urging her to be more aggressive, to cut off the ring and follow up those initial punches, but she kept waiting to counter instead initiating the attacks. ⁓ And that really led Holm to dictate pace for long stretches in the middle rounds. Now the southpaw versus Orthodox dynamic created problems all night. There was frequent clashes of heads similar to the first fight, and Han got cut near her right brow early on in the fight. Home targeted the cut as the fight went on. Han fought through it, and she definitely deserved credit for that. But here's the honest question. Do we really feel like Han did enough to win that fight? Now Han did rally the last two two rounds. She bit down on the mout mouthpiece and traded. She made the late rounds competitive. But I have to say from the fifth round onwards, Holm was the busier fighter, the cleaner puncher, and the one who controlled where the fight actually took place. But the judges valued Hans's fast start and they valued her late finish. they're also sitting in El Paso in Hans's building with Hans's crowd. So while I'm not saying the decision was wrong, it was certainly a close fight. And close fights can be scored either way. And they can, you know, leave people feeling a little bit disgruntled. And that's just how boxing works. I am saying if you watch rounds five through eight and thought Holmes was winning, you weren't alone. One of the three judges agreed with you. So what's next? Well, in the post fight interview, Han called out Katie Taylor immediately after the fight. And she made it personal. She told Ariel that Taylor beat her sister Jennifer Hahn, the former IBF featherweight champion, and she wanted revenge for her family to get that fight. But the question is, will Katie take the bait? now in actual fact, Home was widely expected to to get that Katie Taylor fight if she won. So a Hall of Famer versus the retiring legend at Croat Park in September, that was due to be the money fight. But there's another name in the conversation now. Carline Dubois flew to El Paso and called out Han in the post fight press conference. Dubois is the unified lightweight champion. Han has a WBA belt, and that fight is for the undisputed. Now ESPN says there's a strong chance that that will happen, and given that they're both MVP fighters, it makes sense. And if it does happen, that's gonna be the biggest test of Hans's career and a fight that will tell us whether Saturday night's results were actually right. Okay, next up we have Juarez versus Valle, the matador. Now, the scorecards say split decision, But for me, the fight said something completely different. was the better boxer from round one. And going into Saturday night, she was the only defending champion on the card who was not favored to retain her title. Now, most people expected Valle, the younger, more active fighter, To come in and become a two time division champion, but Juarez had other ideas. Now Valle started strong, she had feints, she was on the front foot, but Juarez was just so calm. She kept that lead hand intentionally low, looking for that overhand. She was s switching stances nicely, she was measuring range, and by round two she was landing the bigger, cleaner shots. But this is what Juarez does. She was a real matador in there. She draws you in, she manages distance, she times you. and Valle just kept coming forward with relentless volume, there was a lot of poor shot selection. There was no disguises in her attacks. Her exit strategies were non-existent. She walks in, she throws, she stays in range, and then she gets hit. But Juarez punished that. She had beautiful same time counters, ⁓ footwork, her overhands were landing clean. Round seven, she was doubling and tripling up the jab to set up those power shots behind it. It was really a master class in boxing. Now, Valle did land some overhands of her own, but there was no power behind them and Juarez didn't feel them. And I think the worry is, for me anyway, Valle's offense is her defense. So she's coming forward in the hopes that the volume will cover the gap, and it doesn't. And then unfortunately, round ten, we saw a clash of heads and it opened a nasty gash. They nearly stopped the fight, but thankfully they allowed Valle to continue with one minute left. And within that final minute, Juarez also scored a knockdown. Vaya claimed it to be a slip, but when you watch back the replay, there was a combination of power shots that caused her to fall. so it was deemed a knockdown. The referee, in my mind, got that right. But it was a split decision. It was ninety-five, ninety-four, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-eight, ninety-one. Now, for me, the wide scorecard was the honest card. Juarez control the fight from the second round onwards. She was the better boxer in every department that matters. Range, timing, shot selection, composure. The judge who gave it to Valle was watching a different fight and maybe just preferred this come forward attacker. but it was just interesting to see the the variation of scores on ⁓ that particular fight. Okay, so next we have Serrano vs Hansen, and this was for the WBAWBO featherweight titles. Now Amanda Serrano officially ties with Christy Martin for the all-time knockout record. 32 stoppages. The most in women's boxing history. She said she wanted it and she went and got it. She got in the second round, two minutes and twenty-five seconds. Now round one was a feel-out round. You could see Serrano was just kind of gathering data on Hansen. She was testing the jab, reading the timing. And Soranna wasn't in much of a rush. She was definitely taking indo inventory. in between the break of round one and round two, she told her corner she got She gave the In other words, she knew she was gonna put her foot on the gas. She cornered Hansen on the ropes, overwhelmed her with combinations. Hansen never hit the canvas. She didn't need to because she just had no answer for it. ⁓ The referee stepped in and waved it off. you've got to give Hansen some credit because she was game. she smiled the first round. She wasn't intimidated. But game and competitiveness are very different things. was fighting outside of Germany for the first time against a seven division world champion with 49 professional fights. ⁓ So that gap is exactly what we thought it was. And look, credit to Serrano. She was clinical. She said afterwards That the three minute rounds gave her more time to set up shots, and she was right, because it did happen in in the that third minute of round two. She used the first round to download information and the second round to act on it. ⁓ But here's where it gets interesting because Serrano told ESPN that 2026 was probably gonna be her last year competing. She wants to close out on 50 fights and that outright knockout record. So she needs one more stoppage. And she's at forty nine fights with thirty-two KOs. Now she signed a lifetime deal with MVP and will become the chairwoman of of that company when she retires. So who does she fight next? Now Alicia Baumgartner has called her out. ⁓ has shut it down. She told ESPN she's not necessarily interested in kind of the bigger fights. She's happy to fight her mandatories. but for me as a big boxing fan, we're all looking for the Ellie Scotney fight. ⁓ she was the undisputed super bantamweight champion, now moving up to featherweight. They're both MVP fighters, and that's the fight we should be talking about. Because if Serrano's gonna break the record, the question isn't whether she can do it. We know she can. It's whether she does it against someone who earned that moment. Mandatories won't necessarily do that, but Scotney would. And finally, we had Delsey Robinson versus Mary Spencer. Now two judges had it 100-90, and the third judge had it 99-91. So it was a near perfect dominant performance for Delcey Robinson. Now Robinson set the pace from the opening bell. She had good control, nice shot selection. She rocked Spencer in the final twenty seconds of round one, which was a beautiful backhand. Spencer had been leading that round up to that point and that shot changed the fight. Now had moments when she committed to her shots, she had success. ⁓ when she threw three punch combinations instead of single shots, she was competitive, but her output was low. But she kept going back to the single punch selection. She's not a volume puncher. And against Robinson, who is a longer rangier and disciplined enough to outwork her, that's a losing strategy. By round five and six, Robinson was catching her with a clipping right hand. Spencer was holding on and she started to hold a lot. corner were pushing her to get the finish. She nearly got it. She did hurt Spencer just before the final bell. Now Robinson won Performance of the Night bonus, that was twenty thousand dollars, and she'd actually been battling an illness since arriving in El Paso, and she didn't tell anyone until after the fight. You know, she she admitted to being her own worst crit critic, but that's the kind of fighter she is. She's durable, disciplined, quiet, and completely underestimated. That's three consecutive middleweight title defences. and nobody is talking about her when they should be. MVP is building something. The circuit is real. London, New York, and now El Paso, and they've got two upcoming fights over the summer. The talent is deeper on every card. But for me we've got to see a little bit of improvement Scorecards have to earn the results, and the record has to earn the history they claim. Saturday night gave us all of that, the good and the questionable, and listen, that's boxing. So in the preview episode, I asked whether MVP would prove the model or reveal it as a moment. And the answer is somewhere in between, I think they're making great progress. The Juarez Valle fight was excellent, the Robinson-Spencer fight was dominant. Those are the real fights with real stakes and the real outcome. The platform delivered on that part of the promise. The main event decision will follow this card and question whether Will Han will give Holm a rematch. To really solidify the decision. And the Serrano fight won't satisfy anyone who watches this sport closely. I'm Sarah Cunningham, and I've been your host from Between the Rounds.