Humberto Soto Wins Unanimous Decision to Face Brandon Rios

Humberto Soto and Donaire headlined the card at Anaheim’s Honda Center after Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. was forced to drop out of the main event Wednesday with a 103-degree fever, supposedly. Saturday delivered a thrilling lightweight slugfest and a breathtaking bantamweight blowout but the reconfigured card drew just 3,253 fans to the Honda Center.

WBC lightweight champion Humberto Soto, who retained a lightweight title via a razor-thin unanimous decision in the grueling main event, is tentatively scheduled to face popular contender Brandon Rios on February 26.

Urbano Antillon from Maywood, CA definitely put on a show including dirty tactics with constant low blows and pushing Soto down twice. Referee Ray Corona deducted a point from Antillon in the fifth round for a low blow and that ended up costing him a draw. Judges Alejandro Rochin and Tony Crebs each had it for Soto, 114-113, with the third judge also scoring it for the champion, 115-112.

“I think that tonight, the real winners here were the fans. I think that it was a great fight, and both of us fought our hearts out,” said Soto. “We knew about him. We knew that he was going to come at us all night, and that’s why we had to work on our boxing ability.”

The bout was a total war with both fighters armed with heavy artillery but it was Soto’s signature uppercut that gave him the edge, at times Soto will land 1-2-3 uppercuts at a time.

“We knew that [the uppercut] was going to be the key against him,” said Soto. “We worked on it and we did it really hard in our training camp, because we knew that it was going to be there.”

Bob Arum said after the fight that he would match Antillon against Miguel Vazquez (27-3, 12 KOs) of Mexico on the same night as Soto-Rios, this being a reward for Antillon’s effort.

“We want Soto to be at full strength for Rios, so if he needs another month, then there is no problem. We knew that these two guys were warriors. We knew what a great, great fight that they would put on,” said Arum. “So what we’re going to do is when Brandon Rios fights Humberto Soto, Urbano Antillon will fight Vazquez and then we’ll keep this thing going.”

All Photos by MariaHedrick.com