It wasn’t an easy one, but WBC Super-Bantamweight World Champion Rey Vargas (33-0-0, 22KO) successfully retained his title with a unanimous decision over powerpuncher Franklin Manzanilla (18-5-0, 17KO), but he was met with a few tense, and odd moments.
Manzanilla knocked him down with a big shot in the 2nd round, which was the 3rd time Vargas was down in his career. Vargas got up and rebounded in the next round, establishing a little distance. Rey wobbled the challenger badly in the 4th round, showing his opponent that he could punch as well.
In this fight, there were 2 separate points taken from Manzilla due to poor sportsmanship, and throughout the fight, he fought with dirty underhanded tactics, and disregarded the Refs commands. In addition to that, there were 2 accidental headbutts in the fight, and 3 cuts were opened on Vargas face, one over the left eye, one under the right eye, and one slightly outside of his right eye. Legendary Trainer/Cutman Nacho Beristain did a fantastic job of coagulating the cuts so that the problems going forward in the fight would be minimal. Vargas did what he had to do down the stretch to secure the win and defend his world title-belt.