PONCE, PUERTO RICO- Puerto Rico's Janiel Rivera and Mexico's Carlos Licona engaged in a ten round brawl for the World Boxing Organization's Latin title on Saturday night during the Direct TV Boxing Nights event, which was presented by Miguel Cotto Promotions in association with Golden Boy Promotions, but at the end of the evening it was the Aztec boxer who won the decision triumph with cards of 98-92, 98-92 and 99-91.

Licona, who improves his unbeaten record to 12-0, was the attacker for most of the fight, letting a glimpse of his aggressiveness and resilience from the early rounds, where he connected to the right side of the face of the Puerto Rican fighter.

However, in the third round Rivera began to look better, hitting good counters and not stopping to receive the punches of the Mexican boxer. His hands looked looser and his left hook began to find Licona's face more often.

The fourth and fifth round seemed to also be for Rivera, especially the fifth in which both stopped in the middle of the ring to exchange shrapnel both to the body and face.

But the contest was slightly changed in the sixth. Licona was still putting pressure and Rivera already started to slow down a bit and received a little more punches than in previous rounds.

In the seventh and eighth, Rivera opted to move more, box and avoid the punishment of Licona. But he did not throw a lot of punches, possibly giving away the rounds to his opponent.

The ninth and the tenth were then a repetition of the fifth with both gladiators standing in the middle of the ring to give themselves with everything they had left without taking a step backwards.

In the end they left everything in the ring, with Rivera finishing with his right eye quite inflamed and Licona with slight swelling on his forehead and right cheekbone.

Rivera saw his record fall to 16-3-3.

It seems that veteran Aaron Mitchell got tired of fighting. For six rounds, Mitchell faced the emerging Dominican fighter Lenin Castillo, but for all three rounds he got tired of taking punches and his reluctance to exchange shrapnel gave him several warnings and even a point for refusing to fight. When the same thing began to play out in the ninth round, the frustrated official chose to stop the fight and awarded the victory to Castillo, who improves to 18-1-1 with 13 knockouts.

Mitchell, in turn, falls to 26-7-1 and suffers his second setback since his return in 2015.