SAN JOSE — Amari “The Reaper” Jones needed less than nine minutes to announce himself as the next mandatory challenger for the vacant IBF middleweight title. Fighting in front of a raucous Bay Area crowd at SAP Center on Friday night, the undefeated Oakland native dropped Vincenzo Gualtieri twice in the third round before the referee called a halt, improving to 17-0 with 15 knockouts.
Jones controlled the early going with his jab and a steady diet of power shots to the head and body. The 24-year-old moved well and timed his counters sharply whenever the 33-year-old Gualtieri tried to close the distance. For two rounds, Gualtieri struggled to find a route in against the younger, faster fighter.
The finish came in a hurry in the third. Jones backed Gualtieri into the corner and broke through his guard with a punishing barrage, the first knockdown sending the former champion to the canvas. Gualtieri beat the count, but the storm was not over. Jones stayed on him along the ropes and this time it was a clean uppercut that finished the sequence, dropping Gualtieri a second time. Referee Edward Collantes took one look at the state of the challenger and waved it off at the count of five.
The win was Jones’ third straight stoppage victory and the biggest of his young career. As the IBF No. 4-ranked middleweight heading in, he now steps to the front of the line with the title vacant after former unified champion Janibek Alimkhanuly was stripped for testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug Meldonium.
Alimkhanuly, who had beaten Gualtieri by sixth-round TKO in their 2023 unification bout, remains the WBO champion but is serving a one-year suspension from that sanctioning body.
For Gualtieri, who came in ranked fifth by the IBF and carried the credibility of a former world champion, Friday was a hard night. He traveled to California with genuine aspirations of recapturing the title he once held, but ran into a prospect who is quickly outgrowing the label. Jones showed not just power but patience, setting up both knockdowns with volume before landing the finishing shots.
The fight was promoted by Golden Boy Promotions and aired live on DAZN.
Also on the card:
In the co-feature, Robin Sirwan Safar (20-0, 13 KOs) survived a second-round knockdown to win a split decision over Yamil Alberto Peralta Jara (18-2-1, 10 KOs) and capture the WBC Silver cruiserweight title. Two of the three judges scored it for Safar, 116-111 and 114-113, while the third had Peralta winning 115-112.
Darius Fulghum (15-1-1, 13 KOs) stopped Yoanki Urrutia (17-3, 7 KOs) in the third round at light heavyweight via corner stoppage. Tristan Kalkreuth (17-1, 12 KOs) scored a sixth-round knockout over Marco Antonio Canedo (8-4-1, 5 KOs) at cruiserweight.