WBO Flyweight Champion Anthony Olascuaga Wins with Pizzazz at the Fontainebleau

The second piece of the back-to-back Canelo-Crawford teasers played out Thursday night at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas. This card was also the first installment of a series that will become a regular monthly feature beginning in January, a series that will be called “The Ring Presents the Underdog.”

Rick Reeno, Turki Alalshikh’s chief lieutenant at The Ring, says, “The Underdog is about giving fans the fights they want – competitive, unpredictable matchups that highlight the next generation of stars.”

There’s a contradiction there. One can showcase the next generation of stars or one can give the fans unpredictable matchups, but doing both at the same time is a juggling act with little precedent. The difficulty in blending the two was apparent on Thursday night.

Anthony Olascuaga looks like the next big thing in the flyweight division, but there was little doubt that he would prevail against Puerto Rico’s Juan Carlos Camacho. True, Camacho came in riding a 14-fight winning streak, but the oddsmakers weren’t fooled. Olascuaga was a consensus 9/1 favorite.

That being said, the Olascuaga-Camacho main event wasn’t expected to be as brutally one-sided. The fight ended in the second round when Olascuaga (10-1, 7 KOs) backed Camacho (19-2) into the ropes and launched a fusillade of unanswered punches, forcing referee Harvey Dock to intervene. The official time was 2:36 of round two.

Born and bred in LA, Olascuaga and his stablemate Junto Nakatani are coached by Rudy Hernandez, the 2024 TSS Trainer of the Year. The lone defeat on his ledger redounded well to him. He was stopped in the ninth round by Kenshiro Teraji, but acquitted himself well against a formidable opponent despite having only five pro fights under his belt and only 10 days to prepare. That was the first of five consecutive fights in Japan for Olascuaga who was making the third defense of his WBO 112-pound world title against Juan Carlos Camacho.

Historically, flyweights fly under the radar, but Olascuaga — with an assist from Alalshikh – may be the exception. Before winning the title, he worked as a cab driver and part-time barber to supplement his meager ring earnings. Now he stands to rake in a good payday in a unification fight with SoCal’s Ricardo Sandoval who forged one of the biggest of the summer when he went to Japan and dethroned the aforementioned Teraji, leaving Yokohama with two belts, WBC and WBA.

Other Bouts

In his first fight at 154 pounds, Jalil Hackett (10-1, 8 KOs) rebounded from his first pro loss with a third-round stoppage of Philadelphia’s Elijah Vines (8-1) who was on the canvas twice before referee Thomas Taylor pulled the plug at the 33-second mark of round three. …

Twenty-one-year-old So Cal super featherweight Justin Valoria, a 10/1 favorite, pitched an 8-round shutout over Joshafat Ortiz, advancing his record to 10-0 (7). Ortiz (14-2) hails from Reading, PA via Ponce, Puerto Rico.

In a 6-round super bantamweight match between undefeated Mexican-American prospects, Emiliano Alvarado won every round on one of the scorecards but had to settle for a majority decision over South Texas hopeful Juan Garcia. The 18-year-old Alvarado, who improved to 10-0 (5) had his first seven fights in Mexico. He is coached by Robert Garcia. Garcia falls to 7-1.

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