The championship match between Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy offered no surprises as Serrano cruised to an easy unanimous decision. The match took place at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, and served as the co-main event to the Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz bout.
Undisputed women’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano (45-2-1, 30 KO’s) proved to be levels above Heather Hardy (24-3, 4 KO’s) whose competition over the past couple of years had clearly waned in comparison to Serrano who had fought world champions in her last three fights. With Hardy also lagging when it came to age (with her being 41 years old), there was little to nothing she could do against a younger and more experienced (and skilled) Serrano.
The two had battled it out once before in 2019 but those were under vastly different circumstances. For one, Amanda Serrano hadn’t yet been an undisputed champion nor faced the likes of Katie Taylor (22-1, 6 KO’s) to truly challenge herself as a competitor. That match also ended with Serrano by unanimous decision.
Their rematch, held on August 5th, was a completely different match and not near as competitive. Serrano dominated every round, as confirmed by the judges who scored the fight in favor of Amanda Serrano with scores of 100-90 twice and 99-91 to win by unanimous decision.
Heather Hardy had virtually no answer for what Serrano threw at her, and looked very much out of form against the Puerto Rican who clearly took every round to win by a landslide. After the twelve rounds, Serrano was announced the winner by UD but the match could be best described as a mismatch.
The main event featured Jake Paul (7-1, 4 KO’s) and former UFC star Nate Diaz (0-1, 0 KO’s) battling each other over a course of ten rounds. While neither fighter seemed accustomed to 10 rounds and were clearly battling against fatigue by the latter half of their match, they did put up a more entertaining fight than the co-main event. Paul won soundly against Nate Diaz by UD, though it should be noted Diaz made his professional debut during this fight.
Super middleweight contenders Shadasia Green (13-0, 11 KO’s0 and Olivia Curry (7-2, 2 KO’s) also faced each other in the ring. Green was confirmed to be the mandatory WBC contender of the super middleweight division prior to facing Olivia Curry. This also meant that Curry stood to likely gain the opportunity to become the mandatory herself if she won, however the match ended with a clear win for Green by UD, allowing her to retain her mandatory status.
Shadasia Green is now expected to face Savannah Marshall (13-1, 10 KO’s) in the near future. Marshall has been the undisputed super middleweight champion since defeating Franchon Crews-Dezurn (8-2, 2 KO’s) on July 1st this year.
