Jose Zepeda's Vicious Knockout Of Ivan Baranchyk | ON THIS DAY

Okay, trunks are okay on both sides. Now gentlemen, we know the rules in the dressing room. Again, I want to caution you to obey my commands at all times. Protect yourself at all times. And what I say, you must obey. Good luck. Catch a buck. With the evolution of the Nevada State Athletic Commission's replay rules, that means that the review official tonight, Robert Byrd, has the last word on any replay situation, and overruling whatever the referee says in the ring. So, as part of the new rules, the replay official, the review official, will depend on what they see on the replay. What we saw early on is that left hook from Ivan Baranchik, which was one of the keys that Tim Bradley said would win him this fight. Got that left, got that lead hand down. This southpaw fighter is not used to the left hook coming at him. Used to the right hand. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the old adage, right? You beat a southpaw with the right hand, but Baranchik says, I've got a better left hook than a right hand, so let's try to start there. Quick start here for Ivan Baranchik. We knew that the tank would come forward. They call him the beast. He's built like a tank. But nonetheless, we see Zepeda looking to engage rather than box early on, and that's a great thing for Baranchik. Well, Baranchik right now is physically strong. You can just tell, look at how wide his back is, strong legs. Landed some big shots early, finding his mark. Now you're seeing Zepeda settling down now, picking his shots from the outside with a jab, but he can't allow Baranchik just to maul himself inside that easily. Got to give him something to look at. Oh, another leaping left hook from Ivan Baranchik. You talked about the angles that he needed to use, and so far, I think he's surprising Zepeda early on with that left hook. You know, it's early on. Zepeda's strong right now, but if Baranchik keeps landing that left hook like that, it's going to do some damage a little bit later in this fight. Oh, there it is again. Zepeda probably hasn't been hit that clean in his last two fights, and there's a right hand, and it's a knockdown. Four, six, seven, eight. That's that Russian power right there. That's devastating power right there we see from Baranchik right now. I must break you is what I remember, and that's what he was saying, the left hook to the body from Ivan Baranchik. I mean, he's just relentless here in this first round, but he's under control. Under control. There it is again, that left hook. This time, Zepeda's able to slip some of it, but this is only the second time that Zepeda's been down in his professional career. The other was a body shot by Carlos Diaz-Ramirez in 2018. Zepeda right now trying to keep his composure. Right now, what he needs to do is he needs to play more defense. You know, when you have a big, strong guy like this— Oh, and another— Goodness. Another shot that puts Zepeda down, although it's a— There it is. Listen to me. Six, seven, eight. Strong. These shots are so quick and so powerful. Oh, my goodness. That's a 10-7 round. 10-7 round already out the gate. He got to climb out that deficit. From the beginning, that's the left hook I was talking about. Great shot right there from Baranchik. I told you guys this was his best punch. You know, we talk about the right hand all the time for a southpaw. The left hook. The left hook and the right hand. Those two punches right there is what gives southpaws problems. They cannot see it coming because of that lead hand. They're used to seeing right hands come their way. And there's a right hand that— It's a right hand and then the left hook that drops him. That was the first knockdown. Remember, the right hand and the left hook. The right hand and the left hook to defeat a southpaw. And there was another knockdown later in the round. So, two knockdowns for Ivan Baranchik. None very clean. Oh, and now Baranchik goes down. Oh, how's that not a knockdown? Whoa. He leaped in with a big bum like that. And then he got cut. And you saw Zepeda go underneath it. He was a little bit off balance, but he landed a shot when he turned the corner. Ooh, now Baranchik is mad. That's probably the last thing you want if you're Jose Zepeda, who's fighting this fight in honor of his cousin Huicho, who died in a motorcycle accident in Arizona while he was in training camp. So, he's fighting with a heavy heart, but he says, that's going to take me to the victory. Quick combination there. Now a left hook, and he drops Baranchik. His legs don't look right. His legs don't look right right now. And Zepeda said, look, I've got 25 knockouts and 32 wins. They're underestimating him. Not a big left hand. Baranchik is in trouble. And here comes Zepeda, pouring it on. And now Zepeda goes down. He gets clipped with a right hook. Call your family right now. Let them know there's a fight breaking out right now on ESPN+. And that's why this fight was one of the most anticipated fights of the summer. We're trading knockdowns here in round number two. Zepeda's already been down twice in the first round. You want action. You want action-packed fights at 140. Welcome to top-ranked boxing on ESPN, baby. We got all the 40s. Not the kind that you drink. Don't drink, my friend. Wow. Zepeda overcommitted. He saw that Baranchik was extremely hurt. His feet were not under him. And this is a war. And I think Baranchik is cut over the left thigh now. We've talked about the cuts from Zepeda. He's used to being cut. He said, that doesn't affect me. But Baranchik, how will he deal with being cut in this fight? Those legs don't look right for Baranchik right now. His legs, he hasn't recovered his legs yet. They're probably still numb. That's what happens when you get rocked with a big shot. You can't feel your legs, so you're unstable in the ring. The question is, Zepeda just got dropped after he had Baranchik in a very bad spot. But Zepeda looks like he's recovered. No, but what I'm saying is, is he reticent to go in there and risk being close to Baranchik after getting clipped? He's just trying to snipe him on the way in right now. That's what he's doing. He's sitting back on the back foot right now. He's looking for the straight left hand. Now, the question is, should it have been two knockdowns for Zepeda in this round? Because the first one was ruled a trip. Oh my goodness, this is a war. Oh! Sent him pushed back to the ropes and caught him off the bounce. Baranchik is a beast. Wow. Let's try to piece all this together, Tim. All right, let's go with the start of the round. There is, I mean, the guy. That's a knockdown. It should have been a knockdown. Definitely, that's a knockdown. Baranchik threw a wide shot, was off balance, got caught with a punch, and went down right on the chin right there. But that's not an official knockdown. It should have been. They need to review that. This is a knockdown. Boom! Right on the chin. Zepeda getting a little bit too greedy. That's what you can't do against a puncher. You can't get too greedy. Even when you got him hurt, you can't get too greedy. And that's what happens right here. And he gets clipped with the left hook. But that's after he had Baranchik hurt, and he had dropped Baranchik. This was Zepeda going in for the kill. Did you see his face how just grimaced on the way down? Shocking, shocking punch right there. Beautiful right hand from Baranchik. Just letting his hands go. He knows he has heavy hands. If you throw the punch, something's going to eventually land. And now there is a replay review going on here. I believe it's for that first knockdown. Time in. And here we go. Time in for round number three. As Tim said, call your familia. Let them know that we have a war on our hands here. Multiple knockdowns already. In terms of power, punches landed through two rounds, 23 to 21. At over 40% clip. And here comes the beast, Ivan Baranchik. Yeah, but see, Zepeda, where he's making a problem is he's giving him the distance. He's backing out at the wrong time. Stay close. Get your head off the line. Stay low. And then you won't get hit with those big bombs coming from Baranchik. Baranchik landed a headbutt on Zepeda here early in round three. But he's coming forward. And every one of his shots seems to be a power punch. Zepeda's landed three of 35 jabs, four of 24 for Ivan Baranchik. And here you see that stick from Zepeda. That's where he wants Baranchik on the end of his punches. And he follows up with that double left hook. And Baranchik's legs, once again, swaddle. But there he goes down again. Oh, man. Five, six, seven, eight. Baranchik's in tremendous shape right now. Tremendous shape, how he got up from that that quickly. And now here, Zepeda's like, he's got to protect that 10-8 lead. Because last time, he got clipped when he tried to finish Baranchik. But it's a long way to go here in round number three. Baranchik is still dangerous. Zepeda better be careful. But that left hook from Zepeda is powerful. He's got 25 knockouts and 32 wins. But here comes Baranchik closing the gap. This is a fun fight. Every time Baranchik throws a shot, I just close my eyes. Because Zepeda's head is right there. And I just feel like it might fly in my lap. Until Zepeda catches him. And you see Baranchik's legs do the weeble wobble, the weeble wobble. You know, both these guys know what's at stake. That's the reason why they're fighting this way. They know what's at stake. They want that world championship opportunity. And they're fighting like it tonight. There's a counter from Zepeda who catches Baranchik coming in. And once again, Baranchik turns his back. And that's exactly how he got dropped in round number two. But it wasn't an official knockdown. Baranchik has a left and right uppercut. He hasn't used it yet. He may be saving it. Oh, headbutt. My goodness. Just the physical strength of Baranchik. Zepeda tying up there as round number three comes to a close. Another knockdown. This time it was for Jose Zepeda. An all-action fight here at the MGM Grand Bubble. Zepeda doing a good job in, you know, keeping his composure even though the knockdowns happened. But right there, he slips underneath, weaves a punch and comes up shooting. Good shot. Boom. Beautiful shot right there. That right there is a championship move right there. Beautiful shot. When you're able to weave and come up with a shot or punch in between as you're weaving, now that's next-level stuff right there from Zepeda. That was a triple left hook from Zepeda. Down and two to the head. Listen, he's like, you hit me hard, I'm gonna hit you harder. Oh, my goodness. Keep it clean. Round four of a scheduled 10-rounder. We've had at least one knockdown in every one of these rounds. Tim Bradley alongside Bernardo Osuna and Mark Kregel here at the MGM Grand Bubble. And now we're seeing why this was one of the most anticipated fights of the summer. The rib injury derailed the July 7th date, but nonetheless, Baranchik doesn't look the worst for wear of it. No, he doesn't. He looks just physically strong. Very determined tonight. He's willing to take whatever he needs to take to be able to land. He knows he's the bigger puncher. Ooh. See how he's backing out, giving that distance? Can't do that. Step in, tie up. Don't allow him to work those hands like that from distance. Quick combination on the inside from Ivan Baranchik. And that's one of the things. He's bouncing Zepeda off the ropes and trying to catch him coming off. And there you see that big left hook to the back of the head there from Baranchik that shakes up Zepeda once again. Yeah, but do you see how strong he is? Every time Zepeda hit him, he rocks him, yes. But every time Baranchik throws a punch and lands, I don't care if it's on the shoulder, it moves Zepeda. Ooh. See Baranchik relentless coming forward. Zepeda's in there taking a shot. Nice body shot from Jose Zepeda. Then he gets clipped with a short right hand on the inside. This is rock him, sock him robots, elite-level stuff, making Jose Zepeda, for me, the finest boxer at 140 pounds, get into a war, and that's a credit to Baranchik's relentlessness. Well, that's credit to that body shot right there. It's what hurt Baranchik. But he just keeps coming. Oh, big uppercut! Left uppercut from Ivan Baranchik, and Zepeda's able to take it as he now goes to the body. This is a fun fight. Well, it's fun for me, because I'm not in there. I've been in these type of fights. Ruzlan Pavonnikov, I've been there before. It's how bad you want it in these spots. I don't know how both these men are standing up right now. I really don't. That's another right to the body from Zepeda. The feet of Baranchik betray him at certain moments in this fight, and that's what Zepeda has to take advantage of. He's a power puncher, so he needs to sit down on those shots, but nice right hand right there. Once again, he catches him bouncing off the ropes. Baranchik is really good at pushing Zepeda back, and when he bounces off that rope, having that right hand waiting for him. Oh, nice counter left from Jose Zepeda, and here we go. Jones says, give me one more! Go down, baby! That's another knockdown for Jose Zepeda. And he gets up quickly. Oh, man. Oh, my goodness. I got to say, I'm glad I'm not a judge tonight. He's possessed. This fight, this is ridiculous, what we're seeing from Jose Zepeda and Ivan Baranchik. Gut check, balance check, heart check. It's only round four. I just thank God that I made it here to see this fight. This is unreal. My goodness. Beautiful, beautiful precision right there from Zepeda. Let's listen to the shot. Ooh, right on the money, right on the kisser, right on the chin. From my favorite camera right there, dog, you see the angle that Zepeda was on when he landed that shot. You can tell that Baranchik didn't see that punch coming at all, and it landed right on the chin. Five pounds of pressure, that's all it takes to put a grown man and knock a grown man out. And you see that shot right there? Well, that put Baranchik on the ground, but you've got to give him credit for getting up as quickly as he did. Unreal. Knockdowns through four rounds. Zepeda's dropped Baranchik three times. Baranchik started it all off, dropping Zepeda twice in the first round. But at the end of the day, there's another knockdown that could have counted for Zepeda, too, as now here comes Baranchik. Round five of a scheduled 10-round fight. Ooh, Baranchik gets flipped once again with the left. Here comes the combinations and angles from Jose Zepeda. People look at him as a boxer. He said, there's some dog in me. That's what I'm talking about. Well, he's showing it tonight, and he's fighting. You know, and this is the level that I see that Zepeda's on now. He got that from the Ramirez fight. That's the experience that he gained. He said, I didn't do enough in the back end. I'm going to stand my ground this time, and that's what he's doing in spots. We always ask fighters, because they'll say, oh, what's different? The experience. He quantified it. He said, the fact that Ramirez showed that will down the stretch, he wanted it more. And that's what I got to do. That's who I have to be. And that's who he is right now, landing that left hook. But Baranchik continues to be extremely dangerous here in round number five. This is a gut check type of fight for Jose Zepeda. We talked about him having all the tools to outbox you, but did he have enough to dig deep down and want to be that guy? Tonight, he's being that guy. He's being forced to be that guy by Baranchik. Yes, he is. And that's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. And this is the way you get fans. Many fans will want to watch you. You got to stand your ground and fight. He's a superior boxer, but he also has punching power. And he's choosing the right spots right now, and Zepeda choosing the right spots and catching Baranchik and hurting him. Now, Baranchik has got incredible recovery powers and stamina because he's been down, and none of them has been a cheap knockdown. No, no. Right on the chin. Get caught right on the buzzer, and he gets up. Here comes Baranchik. He's trying to get Zepeda against the ropes. You know what he's trying to do? He's trying to wear him down. He's trying to get him to the halfway point. He wants Zepeda to doubt himself. If he can make it past there, and if his condition can hold up, Zepeda could be in trouble down the stretch. Whoa! Now it's a big right hand from Baranchik. And it's a knockdown because the ropes held him up. Six, seven, eight. OK, here we go. All right, so five rounds. Oh, my goodness. More than five knockdowns. No knockout yet because these two guys have a heart. Big right hand! He spins the leg, and this fight is done! What a knockout from Jose Zepeda! John with a big knockout here in the bubble at the MGM Grand. He's number one in the world in the WBC. What an impressive performance from John Zepeda. And Ivan Baranchik is still down. We said we had a boxer versus a slugger tonight. That's what we said. The styles make fights. But you can see when a fighter, when his temperament, when he makes his mind up that, hey, I'm going to stand my ground tonight. He's going to hurt me. I want to hurt him. That's what you saw from Zepeda tonight. You saw a fighter that's on a mission, a fighter that wants to fight for the world championship once again. And I believe tonight he made the statement in his division to call for that world championship opportunity. I mean, when you look at what we saw in here tonight, it was impressive from both fighters. Baranchik gave us a great fight. Zepeda had to give us a great fight. And then that one punch that ended it all was a devastating right hand from Jose Zepeda that put an end to this fight. And then it took us into another mode, which is let's make sure that Ivan Baranchik is okay. And fortunately he is. And so we send it to Mark Chinook for the official time of the knockout. Ladies and gentlemen, here inside MGM Grand. And to everyone watching on ESPN Plus, you have just witnessed the fight of the year. Referee Kenny Bayless calls a stop to this bout at two minutes, 50 seconds of round number five, declaring your winner by knockout. And now the WBC silver champion, Jose Chon Zepeda! That was almost 15 minutes of intense action. It was an epic fight, Tim. And out of respect for Ivan Baranchik and his condition in the ring, we hadn't shown the replay of just how brutally this fight ended. But Tim, walk us through the finish. Listen, this is the best fight that I've ever witnessed live, honestly. Beautiful shot right there from Baranchik. Nice overhand right. He's always dangerous. When you're in the ring with a puncher, especially a determined one, to land that big bum, it's always dangerous for a fighter. You know, and that was a knockdown right there for Baranchik. He was able to create a beautiful shot, catching... You know, you see the little angle he was on when he landed that right hand. And the ropes held him up. That's why it was a knockdown. And I said, you know, show Barry that right hand. Barry the right hand. And he did that. He looped it right there on Zepeda. Zepeda never saw it coming. Zepeda stepped back, gave him some distance to land that right hand. And then after that came the end. And this is the end right here. Nice little check hook right there after the jab. And then the big boom right on the chin from Zepeda. Check hook. Boom. Okay. You see the head of Baranchik. He never saw it coming. But look at the leg right there behind him. But his body collapsed in midair. He was knocked out in midair. This is what's brutal about it. He's knocked out there. The right leg is completely discombobulated. And then he smacks his head on the canvas at full strength. This is the best fight that I've ever witnessed live. I've never seen a fight this dramatic live. I've seen them on TV. I had one in 2013. The fighter tonight, Zepeda, will get fighter of the year in 2020 in my opinion. No one's going to top that. And there we see Ivan Baranchik as we anticipated going to UMC Medical Center, the trauma center, which is one of the top in the nation. And just a few days ago, we were commemorating the third anniversary of the shooting that happened here in Vegas at the music festival. And he's going to one of the hospitals that dealt with some of the victims of that shooting. And tonight, he's going to that hospital because that's where they treat every fighter that ever has any issues after a fight here. The Nevada State Athletic Commission and UMC Medical Center work very closely in terms of trauma care and treatment of head injuries. But this is a situation where we saw a lot of positive reactions from Ivan Baranchik, and this is precautionary. But this is part of what makes boxing something that you love so much and something that at times you hate because of the brutality of it. But let's send it up to Mark Crego, who's standing by with the winner who also lived through the range of emotions, Jose Zepeda. Sean Zepeda, congratulations. This was the greatest win of your career, but it was a frightening end. What are you feeling right now? Well, you know, I feel great because I won the fight. It was a hard fight. And, I mean, I'm thinking, man, boxing, it's hard, man. I mean, it's no easy game. Boxing, it's tough, and you got to give it 100% because it's a hard sport, probably the hardest sport. What did you tell Ivan at the end? Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I mean, both of us are climbing up, and somebody had to stay, you know, and down. So I was able to win the fight, and I told him, you know, thanks for the fight, great fight. It was a great fight. You were down four times and won by knockout. Did you think you had that in you? You know, I know it was tough. I know I'm tough. I didn't know how tough I was. And, well, tonight I showed, and I showed myself, too. You know, it's the first time I'm in a fight like this, and it was a great learning experience. You showed the best thing that was in your heart, your soul. Some of it was difficult to watch, but what will you take with you from this? To be honest, I have to watch the fight again, but I think just believe in myself. You know, it's two in there. It's two guys in there giving their all, and at the end of the day, I think it's whoever wants it more. Be honest with me as best you can. You doubted yourself at times going into this fight. Did you not? All the time. To be honest, it happens to me all the time in every fight. I doubt myself too much. I'm a fighter that only had 16 amateur fights. You know, not a lot of experience in amateur. So I'm always doubting myself in this fight. Yeah, it was tough, yeah. So does this fight change you, change your career? You should be the number one guy in the B.C. now. What about going forward? What does Chan Zapata think of himself, and where does he go? Well, I know there was a really tough fight with Ramirez. I think a lot of people thought that was a very close fight. I would love to do it again. I mean, he's the champion. I won 40, so I would love to do it again. I'm going for the title. So yeah, that's why we're here in boxing. Took a night like this, a test like this, to show you how tough you actually are. Don't doubt yourself anymore. Thank you. Hope everything works out for Ivan. Bernardo, back to you. Thank you.