Guatemalan slugger Lester Martinez won a twelve-round unanimous decision over Immanuwel Aleem to win the vacant WBC interim super middleweight title. Fighting in the main event of ProBoxTV’s broadcast from the NOS Event Center in San Bernardino, California, Martinez (20-0-1, 16 KOs) of Guatemala City, Guatemala, used effective and powerful uppercuts and a superior work rate to keep the upper hand over Aleem (22-4-3, 14 KOs) throughout while absorbing return fire with his typical toughness. To his credit, Aleem came on strong in the later rounds, especially the eleventh and never gave up trying to win. However, the scores were 120-108, 118-110 and 119-109, all for new  Martinez.

 

“I feel good,” said a happy Martinez, post-fight. “I want to thank my parents and family. I want to thank my team: Bomac, Saul, all my team and my promoter Garry Jonas. I want to thank all of you, Guatemala. We now have a world champion! I love Guatemala and all of my fans. I love y’all. Viva Guatemala!

 

“All respect to Aleem,” the new interim champion continued. “He’s a warrior and we knew how good he was and his experience, but we were ready for that and more. We went in cautious because we knew what we had in front of us. But to hear the Guatemalan fans cheering gave us the will to go on.”

 

“He had more consistency in the little things and I didn’t capitalize, so shout out to Lester Martinez,” said a disappointed but sportsmanlike Aleem. “It wasn’t the performance I was looking for, but I’m going back to the drawing board to continue my hunt for a world title.”