Amanda Serrano vs. Reina Tellez Live Winners and Losers, Results
Amanda Serrano wanted to get back on the winning side of things.
The seven-division champion and sure-fire Hall of Famer hadn't had her hand raised after a boxing match in 18 months, which placed particular emphasis on her Saturday night return to headline a show in her native Puerto Rico.
The 37-year-old still had a claim to a featherweight title belt she initially captured nearly 10 years ago and she defended that status against top-10 contender Reina Tellez atop a four-bout main card at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan.
The B/R combat team was in position to take in the action and delivered a real-time account of the event's definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.
Winner: Following the Script
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It was supposed to be easy. And, all things considered, it was.
Serrano, a 20-to-1 favorite, spent a few rounds playing with her overmatched, short-notice food before settling into a rhythm and defending her WBA and WBO featherweight titles with a wide unanimous decision before a building full of blissful partisan fans.
Two judges gave her seven of 10 rounds and the third gave her eight of 10, providing a slightly narrower margin than B/R's 10-0 scorecard.
Five inches taller and more accustomed to fighting at 126 pounds, Serrano consistently marched forward and worked effectively to both the head and body as Tellez moved laterally and occasionally replied with flashy but mostly irrelevant flurries—though they did leave Serrano bruised and swollen around the right eye.
Nevertheless, the 22-year-old's work rate dipped as the fight progressed and she was already swollen, cut and competitively disheartened by the fifth, when she was hurt by several shots to the body.
Serrano landed a series of hard lefts to Tellez's head in the seventh, too, and the champion ferociously but vainly chased a finish in the 10th.
Her 31 career KOs are one behind women's boxing legend Christy Martin.
The 37-year-old was non-committal about her future but did suggest that she'd be open to fights against the other title claimants in the weight class.
"There's a lot of new champions at featherweight. And maybe one day we can all get together," Serrano said. "But I'm just the racehorse. Whatever the jock tells me to do, I do."
Loser: Hall-Worthy Ending
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Well, that didn't work out well for anyone, did it?
Holly Holm's would-be return to championship status in boxing was unsatisfying by every measure, ending instead in a technical decision loss after her opponent, Stephanie Han, was unable to continue after sustaining a cut from an accidental butt in Round 7.
Because the scheduled 10-rounder had gone past its halfway point, the result was determined by the scorecards, which gave Han wins by 69-65, 69-64 and 68-65 margins, close to B/R's 70-63 at the time of the stoppage.
That allowed her to defend her WBA lightweight title for the second time and was a comprehensive disappointment for the 44-year-old Holm, who was aiming to become the first International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee to return to win a world title.
Holm had been a full-time boxer and had won titles in three weight classes through 2013 before changing course to mixed martial arts and winning the UFC bantamweight title with a memorable upset defeat of Ronda Rousey in 2015.
She returned to the ring with a victory in July and had eyes on bigger opportunities if she'd gotten through Saturday, but she was consistently on the short end of exchanges with a foe who was faster, busier and more varied in her approach.
Han landed 87 of 341 punches compared to just 29 of 243 for Holm, who said afterward she'd take Han up on an offer for a rematch in either her native Texas or Holm's home turf in New Mexico.
"She had a lot of volume, and I was kind of waiting until the later rounds to take over," Holm said. "I didn't want it to end like that."
Loser: Back to Boxing
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And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what a boxing lesson looks like.
Unheralded Alexis Araiza, a Golden Gloves champion as an amateur, put her skills pedigree to good use with a clinical beatdown of 10-to-1 favorite Ebanie Bridges in the outspoken Aussie's return from a two-year layoff in the main card opener.
The 35-year-old Texan worked well from distance and consistently strafed the perpetually aggressive Bridges, 39, with jabs, combinations and body work, leaving the ex-bantamweight titleholder plodding forward in search of a fight-changing shot.
It never came. And the scorecards reflected the superiority, with one judge scoring all eight rounds in Araiza's favor and the other two giving her six of eight to match B/R's card.
She improved to 4-2-1 as a pro while Bridges dipped to 9-3.
"It would have been nice to have a win," Bridges said. "It was hard. It was a risk coming back early and fighting. I fought my heart out. I was nervous and I've never been nervous since my debut fight. We'll re-set and see what happens next."
Winner: Embracing the Stage
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One fight after Bridges stumbled as a heavy favorite, Krystal Rosado didn't.
The 23-year-old returned to her native island for the first time in 15 months and looked the part of the conquering hero, using both style and substance to outclass Canadian import Tania Walters across six rounds in the 118-pound weight class.
Rosado went off as a 16-to-1 selection and won nearly every minute of every three-minute round—the first time she'd fought past two minutes per round—thanks to effective fundamentals from distance alongside crowd-pleasing flurries that seemed to gradually sap Walters' willingness to charge forward.
All three judges had it 60-54—or six rounds to zero, matching the B/R card—for Rosado, who landed 109 of 395 punches compared to 40 of 322 for Walters.
A protégé of Serrano, she hadn't fought in Puerto Rico since October 2024 and was coming off her first career loss, a unanimous eight-round decision against ex-bantamweight champ Shurretta Metcalf three months ago in Texas.
"She's growing," said analyst Nonito Donaire, a former world champion in four weight classes, "and she wants to get better."
Loser: Unhappy Holidays
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It had been a rough few weeks for Most Valuable Promotions.
Co-founder and lead hype man Jake Paul had his face rearranged by Anthony Joshua in an ill-fated jump into real boxing on Dec. 19 in Miami.
Also, in the run-up to the card in Puerto Rico, Serrano's original opponent, Erika Cruz, was removed after an "atypical finding" in a pre-fight drug test. Serrano and Cruz met in a unification bout two years ago in New York and continuing a rivalry with the two-division champion was a primary selling point of Saturday's show.
But that's not all.
Cruz's replacement, Tellez, was set for the first title bid of her comparatively brief pro career, but her opportunity to seize Serrano's belts was sacrificed when the 22-year-old came in heavy—126.6 pounds—and thus made herself ineligible to claim the championships even if she'd beaten the 30-to-1 favorite.
Results
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Main Card
Amanda Serrano def. Reina Tellez by unanimous decision (98-92, 97-93, 97-93)
Stephanie Han def. Holly Holm by unanimous decision (69-65, 69-64, 68-65)
Krystal Rosado def. Tania Walters by unanimous decision (60-54, 60-54, 60-54)
Alexis Araiza def. Ebanie Bridges by unanimous decision (80-72, 78-74, 78-74)
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