A fight-night report from Madison Square Garden had Richardson Hitchins doing exactly what a top-shelf technician is supposed to do at Zuffa Boxing 09: make a dangerous assignment look miserable for the other guy. Hitchins swept Ricardo Salas by unanimous decision, taking 100-90 on all three scorecards in his welterweight debut.
This was not a chaos fight. It was a clean boxing lesson, the kind of performance that makes the just-bleed crowd grumble while every coach in the room nods like a proud uncle. MiddleEasy has been tracking Zuffa Boxing’s talent grab, and Hitchins just gave Dana White’s boxing project another undefeated name with real leverage at 147 pounds.
Hitchins, now 21-0 with 8 knockouts, came in as the former junior welterweight titleholder who vacated his belt in April before moving up. Salas, listed at 24-3-2 with 18 knockouts, had not lost since 2022 and had stopped five of his previous six opponents. On paper, that is the kind of pressure fighter who can turn a pretty boxer into a sweaty disaster. In the ring, Hitchins kept him stuck outside like he forgot the password.
Richardson Hitchins CALLS OUT Devin Haney after beating Ricardo Salas!!! 🔥👀
“I’ve been saying it for years that I’m better than Devin Haney!!”- Richardson Hitchins
🎥: https://t.co/poJ6AHtHdx pic.twitter.com/GQFh7kgeqC
— Fight Hub TV (@FightHubTV) July 27, 2026
Richardson Hitchins defeats Ricardo Salas via UD (100-90, 100-90, 100-90)#ZuffaBoxing09 pic.twitter.com/RYujHypoHL
— COMBAT SPORTS TODAY (@CSTodayNews) July 27, 2026
Ricardo Salas CHARGES Richardson Hitchins, Hitchins SHOULDER ROLLS & COUNTERS off the ROPES in ROUND 8 😤#ZuffaBoxing09 | #Boxing pic.twitter.com/0eIvwkY0hl
— RINGOFHIGHLIGHTS (@ringofhighlight) July 27, 2026
Hitchins Turned The Co-Main Into A Clinic
The fight took place in the 10-round co-main event at the Infosys Theater inside Madison Square Garden and streamed on Paramount+. Hitchins leaned on the jab, kept the range comfortable, and made Salas chase without giving him the kind of pocket exchanges that Mexican pressure fighters usually feast on.
Salas kept trying to push Hitchins toward the ropes, but the Brooklyn boxer kept stepping off, tying up when needed, and touching him with fast straight shots and left hooks. The ringside doctor checked Salas’ damaged eyes before round nine, which tells you how one-way the traffic had become without needing a spreadsheet.
“That’s what you call beautiful boxing,” Hitchins said after the fight. “The guy was tough. It was a fight that fans said I didn’t want to take, against a pressure-fighting Mexican, so I showed what I can do. I boxed. I stood on the inside, and I did what I had to do, so onto the next.”
The performance also landed at a busy moment for Zuffa Boxing. MiddleEasy recently covered Dana White’s push for more boxing free agents, and Hitchins’ clean win gives that pitch another selling point. He did not deliver a highlight-reel finish, but he delivered control, and control pays bills when the judges all hand you the same shutout.
The only wrinkle came after the bell, when Hitchins said his right hand had been bothering him since camp and flared up midway through the fight. That helps explain why he did not force the finish late, even with Salas visibly behind and struggling to find any clean answers.
“I hurt my hand in the sixth or seventh round. I mean, I hurt my hand in camp, but it didn’t really hurt in the first two rounds. But then, I caught him with a good shot with my right hand, and my hand started hurting, so I didn’t really want to keep sitting down on shots, and make the later rounds difficult, so I said, ‘Okay, let me just cruise through it.’”
That is not the wildest sales pitch if fans wanted a firefight, but it is a pretty nasty statement for the welterweight division. Hitchins moved up, took a ranked puncher, pitched a shutout, and still had a built-in reason for not stepping harder on the gas.
Zuffa Boxing has already produced the kind of crossover noise that pulls MMA fans toward the ring, from Tony Hirsch Jr.’s Zuffa Boxing 08 knockout to bigger-name signing drama. Hitchins did not give the timeline a knockout meme this time. He gave it something more useful for the matchmaking board: a clean 147-pound arrival from a fighter who looks ready to make elite welterweights solve a long, annoying, sharp jab.
