By Francisco Salazar

Lightweight contender Jose ‘Chon’ Zepeda stopped Miguel Zamudio late Saturday night at the Palenque de Gallos in Comitan, Chiapas, Mexico.

Zepeda improves to 27-1 1 NC, with 22 KOs, while Zamudio falls to 39-10-1, with 23 KOs. Zepeda picks up the vacant WBO International super lightweight title.

It was all Zepeda from the opening bell as he landed the more telling blows throughout the fight. Zamudio displayed his frustration throughout the fight, attempting to intentionally head-butt Zepeda, which drew a warning from referee Miguel Canul.

Zamudio was deducted a point in round five for hitting on the break. The end of the fight came at 1:38 of the sixth round as Zamudio was not able to continue due to a nasty cut above his left eye from a clash of heads.

By the universal rules of boxing, the fight should have gone to the scorecards, since the fight was stopped by an accidental head-butt that caused a cut. But the ruling was a technical knockout in favor for Zepeda.

Zamudio did not seem to complain as he was down 50-45 on all three scorecards entering the sixth round.

Zepeda is unbeaten in his last four bouts since losing to Terry Flanagan in July of 2015.

Former interim world junior lightweight titleholder Emanuel Lopez scored a one-sided 10 round decision victory over Carlos Cardenas (22-14-1, with 14 KOs). Scores were 100-90, 100-90, and 100-92 for Lopez, who improves to 26-6-1, with 11 KOs.

Former world junior bantamweight titleholder and current junior lightweight Tomas Rojas (49-15-1, with 33 KOs) stopped Jose Cifuentes (4-3-1, with 2 KOs) at 2:43 of the fifth round.

Hard-hitting junior welterweight Luis Solis won an eight round unanimous decision over former world featherweight titleholder Cristobal Cruz (41-22-4, with 25 KOs). All three judges scored the bout 77-75 in favor of Solis, who improves to 22-8-4, with 18 KOs.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (Calif.) Star newspaper, RingTV.com, and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter