TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Sarah: January 3rd, San Juan. It's round seven. Hahn is ahead on every scorecard. Her right hand is landing clean. She's been the better fighter all night. then there's Holly Holmes, 44 old, And just starting to figure out the puzzle. Her output up, ⁓ her movement's sharper, she's coming. Then their heads collide, doctors in, fight's over. On the scorecards, we had 69, 65, 69, 64, 68, 65. It's clean on paper, but it's messy in reality. Han kept the belt, but nobody really got the answer. Answer. May 30th, El Paso, hands hometown, they're gonna run it back. And this rematch isn't even the best reason to tune in. We have four world title fights. Every champion on this card walked in with something unresolved. And today I'm breaking down all four fights. And the fight that you should be most excited about isn't even the one on the top of the poster. I'm Sarah Cunningham and I'm your host of Between the Rounds. So let's get into it. So we've Han Home the rematch ⁓ for the WBA lightweight title. So Stephanie Hahn, she's 12-0. Now we know she's a police officer, a mother, and she currently retains the WBA Lightweight Championship belt. Now she won that belt with a first-round knockout and hasn't lost a professional fight yet. She's 35 and she gets better with every fight. Then we've Holly Holmes. She's a boxing hall of famer, three-weight world champion, the woman who flatlined Rhonda Rousey and changed the entire trajectory of women's combat sports. She came back to boxing after 12 years of doing other things. She is 44 and she wants one more shot at a title. Now, most people looked at the scorecards from the first fight and think Han cruised. But she actually didn't. She was excellent for the first five rounds. That right hand was her best friend. She set the pace, she controlled the distance, and she forced Holmes into fighting on her terms. But then Holmes adapted. She was able to double the left. She moved more. She closed round two with a combination that said, I'm still here. And then by the seventh round, she was actually the busier fighter. And then the headbutt happened. The doctor stepped in and we went to the scorecards. We got the result, but we didn't quite get a conclusion. So the question for this fight is straightforward. Can Holm solve the right hand? Han timed her coming in beautifully over and over. because Holm got pretty predictable with her shot selection. Holm is a southpaw who likes to work behind the jab Which is a great style until someone is catching you every single time So she needs a different angle. She needs to become less predictable. She needs to pull Han forward, make her reach, counter off the back foot instead of walking onto all the shots. She has the experience to do all of that. It's whether the reflexes cooperate at 44. That's the real gamble. And look, then there's the crowd. Han fights out of El Paso. This is her building. So in a close fight, that's not nothing. My read, Hannah's the better boxer today. She's younger, sharper, unbeaten. But home is dangerous because she's a Hall of Famer with 20 years of combat experience across two sports and absolutely nothing left to lose. So if this fight crosses the seventh round, past the point where the last one did, we're gonna see the best of both of them and who really wants this most. next up we have Juarez and Valle. So I did say the most dangerous fight on this card isn't the main event. Here it is. We have Lulu Juarez, she's 39 and 4, the WBC junior flyweight champion. Part of a boxing dynasty from Mexico. Now she won the world title at Superflyweight in 2020. She lost it and then rebuilt from scratch. She then won the light flyweight belt in 2024, defended it twice, beat Jessica Nuri Plata by majority decision last time out. If you know that name, you know that that's not a gift. She earned every round. Then we have Yocasta and Valle. She's 34-3 with 10 knockouts. She's been the WBC straw weight champion from Costa Rica. And she's had many credible wins on her resume. But here's why this fight gets special attention. Valle is moving up. She was a straw weight champion and she's coming for the junior flyweight belt. So we've two champions from two divisions in the same ring. And at 108 pounds, that almost never happens. And they're about to go 10 rounds for the right to call themselves the best in the world. Now look, neither of them are power punchers. Valle has 10 stoppages in 37 fights, and Juarez has five in 43. This will be a chess match. Distance, timing, who imposes their rhythm, who's got the better boxing IQ. ⁓ So if you watch boxing craft, cancel your plans and tune into this fight. Juarez has the size. She's been at this weight longer, and she's defending on home soil for MVP. ⁓ Valle has the cleaner resume, she's the smaller fighter moving up. And if Valle can't get inside, Juarez Is gonna keep her on the end of combinations for 10 whole rounds. Okay, next up we have ⁓ Amanda Serrano. She's forty-eight and four and one with thirty-one knockouts. And she's a seven weight world champion. So what's left for Amanda? Well, she's actually looking for the all-time knockout record. She said it herself. That's the mission now. This is that fight. Now that doesn't mean Hansen can't fight. She's 17 and 2 with 13 knockouts and she has a 76% stoppage rate at featherweight. But when we actually do a little bit of research into the names of who she's fought and beat, her best wins are regional German titles and club level opponents in Eastern Europe. So she's never fought anyone close to Serrano's caliber. And that's the real gap here in experience. So the question for this fight isn't whether Serrano wins, The kickboxing timing could catch Serrano off guard early. It's a different rhythm than what pure boxers bring. If she lands clean in the first two rounds, pay attention. But if Serrano walks through it and starts pouring on volume, this will end early and we learn nothing new. And then just a quick hit on the fourth world title fight. We have Desley Robinson. She's Australian. Now she won the IBF middleweight belt on a fractured foot and unified it four months later. She signed with MVP, stopped her last opponent in two rounds. Nobody's talking about her, but they should be. Now she goes up against Mary Spencer, who's Canadian. She's also a former amateur world champion, but she lost her WBA super welterweight title to Michaela Mayer last October. She's 41. She's moving up to middleweight. so this is fight that tells her whether the world title window is still open or whether it's just closed. The odds are tight and this is a genuine coin flip sitting on an undercard of a stacked show. ⁓ So if you are flipping between channels on Saturday don't wait for the main event to tune in, because you'll miss this. So we have four world title fights, all women, all on ESPN, all three-minute rounds, from a promotion that didn't exist two years ago. So we've had MVPW1, which was in London, we've had MVPW2, which was at MSG in New York, and now we've got MVP three in El Paso. They're building a circuit, and the talent level is getting deeper on every card. The first event, sure, it had novelty on its side. The second had momentum. this third one has to prove that this model works. Saturday night tells us whether this is a platform or a moment. And I've got my fingers crossed for MVP. ⁓ So we've got MVP3, May 30th, El Paso, ESPN, 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Four titles, four fighters with something to finish. I'm Sarah Cunningham and this has been the breakdown from Between the Rounds. And I'll see you ⁓ after the bell on Saturday night.