SAN ANTONIO – Marco Antonio Rubio came into Saturday night’s 12-round main event title fight extremely confident that he was going to dethrone the WBC Middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and even went as far as saying he was going to knock him out.

Well, Chavez Jr. made Rubio eat his words as he retained the title by scoring a unanimous decision victory Saturday night at the Alamodome in San Antonio as a part of Top Rank Boxing and HBO Boxing.

“Rubio said at the press conference this past week that he was going to knock me out and it looks like I am still standing here with my title in my hands,” said Chavez Jr., who improved to 44-0-1. “I am very happy that I was able to get the win and retain the title. I have to give all the thanks to god for being in my corner tonight.”

After a slow start, Rubio (53-5-1, 47 KO’s) struck first as he connected with a straight right hand at the end of the first round.

However, Chavez Jr. started coming on in the third round as he threw some combinations that landed to the head of Rubio. Both fighters exchanged a nice little flurry of punches between each other late in the third round.

Rubio stunned Chavez Jr. late in the fourth round as he caught him with a nice combination. But, Chavez Jr. started unloading some bombs to the body of Rubio in the fifth round which seemed to hurt him a little.

Rubio threw a nice little uppercut to the right side of Chavez Jr.’s head which sent it snapping back a little in the seventh round.

Chavez Jr. caught Rubio with a nice uppercut in the eighth round which stunned him and then followed up with some nice combinations late in the round.

Rubio started to become active early in the eleventh round as he was unloading everything he had. But Chavez Jr. answered back and unleashed a series of combinations once again which had Rubio against the ropes. Rubio weathered it and both fighters became involved in an old fashioned slugfest late in the round.

“I have to give Rubio credit because he hung in there and battle for 12 rounds,” said Chavez Jr. “However, I felt that the difference to winning the fight for me was that I was able to battle him on the inside and he really hand no answer to my combination shots.”

In the co-main event, Nonito Donaire (28-1, 18 KO’s) overcame a broken hand early in the fight and was able to secure a split decision victory over Wilfredo Vasquez Jr. to capture the vacant WBO Jr. Featherweight Title.

“I broke my hand somewhere in either the second or fourth round and it affected me in the fight,” said Donaire. “However, I was able to dig down deep and fought through it.”

“Vasquez was tougher than I expected and definitely challenged me. But in the end, I was able to get the decision and won the title.”

In other action, Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KO’s) captured the vacant WBC Silver Super Welterweight title as he defeated Troy Lowry by third round knockout. Also victorious were Raul Hirales, Alex Saucedo, Adam Lopez, Wale Omotoso, David Castillo, and Jeremy Longoria.