The first fight saw Cancio pull a massive upset over Machado, who blamed a bad training camp and problems making weight for his loss and appeared to avoid those issues before the rematch, which Machado was contractually obligated to recieve after he activated that clause.
The first round saw both fighters land plenty with each landing their share of big body shots and the round was fought on even terms.
Machado started well in round two and when the two collided heads with the result opening a bad cut over the right eye of Cancio with the cut being bad enough that it looked to be a factor in the fight with Cancio's vision, if not potentially stopping the fight as the fight moved forward.
However, even in the second round you could feel that Cancio's strength was already taking its toll on Machado and that Machado was going to have to do something to deter the aggression on Cancio.
It didn't take long for Cancio to take that option off the table as you could feel Machado melting away against the attack and when Cancio ripped a left hook to the body that made me think of their first fight,Machado again wilted and couldn't rise from the floor.
For Cancio, it was a confirmation that his first win was not an fluke and stamped him as a player in the 130 pound division, even if it is with a minor belt.
Cancio could be headed for IBF champion Tevin Farmer (both DAZN fighters) or possibly eventually Gervonta Davis as his minor title is under the "super" (ugh) title held by Davis as long as Cancio keeps winning and forces the WBA to make that fight.
As for Machado, I'm not sure where he can go from here.
If you cannot have the strength to keep Andrew Cancio off of you, how can you expect to keep lightweights from rolling over you, especially of the caliber of Vasyl Lomachenko, Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney and Richard Commey, all of whom are either champions or someone that will need to be dealt with to reach title contention.
Despite the talent that Machado has, I just don't see a road for success for him in the future and he may very well be finished as a title level fighter.
The co-feature saw a surprise and some controversy as Elwin Soto upset Angel Acosta with a 12th round stoppage to strip Acosta of the WBO light flyweight championship.
I had Acosta slightly ahead after a late round rally from an early deficit that saw Soto knock the champion down in the second round in a fight that saw plenty of punches thrown and punches that crashed home on their opponent.
I had Acosta ahead 105-103 (7-4 in rounds with Acosta losing a point for the knockdown) entering the final round with winning most of the second half of the fight with combinations with both hands that consistently found their mark on Soto and hurt him several times, although Soto managed to stay upright throughout the fight.
Acosta was leading on all three cards with my card agreeing with the judge that had the fight that tight, but must have thought he needed the round as he raced out of his corner to attack Soto and drove the challenger into the ropes where Soto threw a Hail Mary of a left hook that landed and hurt Acosta, who wobbled away.
However,I didn't think that Soto's followup punches landed squarely and even though Acosta was far from out of the woods, I didn't think the stoppage by referee Thomas Taylor was a good one.
I would imagine a rematch will be in order.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica added two points for Andrew Cancio's win and I scored nil on the Friday action.
Ramon cut the lead in the challenge to 147-134.
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