Using his considerable size and power advantage, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (48-1-1, 32 KO’s) pounded out a hard-earned 12 round unanimous decision tonight over Brian Vera (23-8, 14 KO’s) at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Chavez Jr. hit Vera with some shots that would have likely knocked out 90% of the super middleweights in the division, but Vera showed an incredible chin and great heart in taking the shots.
Just by hanging around, Vera was able to punish Chavez Jr. with less powerful shots and he had his face looking like he was the loser tonight instead of the winner.
The final judges scores were 114-113, 117-110, 117-110. There’s no question that Chavez Jr. deserved the decision this time around, but it’s too bad that he was given what many boxing fans saw as a gift decision over Vera last September in their previous fight. But Vera got a rematch out of that fight anyway, so it worked out about the same as him getting a win.
The referee took a point away from Vera in the 8th for leaning on Chavez Jr. However, the referee didn’t take any additional points off from Vera for the leaning on Chavez Jr’s neck that he continued to do in the fight. I guess he didn’t want to look like he favoring Chavez Jr. in the fight.
If Vera had good punching power like Gennady Golovkin, he would have made a wreck of Chavez Jr’s face in this fight and likely would have beaten him. Chavez Jr. was too easy to hit tonight.
Speaking of Golovkin, Chavez Jr. said that he wants to fight him next, saying “I want to fight Gennady Golovkin.”
It would be a good fight. I don’t think Chavez Jr. would win even if he had the kind of weight advantage that he did tonight. Golovkin is too powerful and he’d do a number on Chavez Jr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgZxdj-u5ac
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Top Rank Promotions made a mistake in letting their young and inexperienced fighter [at the pro level] Vasyl Lomachenko (1-1, 1 KO’s) take the fight against former WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido (41-12-2, 28 KO’s) tonight, because Lomachenko clearly wasn’t ready to take a fighter as talented and as experienced as Salido. Lomachenko lost the fight by a 12 round split decision to Salido by the scores 115-113 and 116-112 for Salido, and 115-113 for Lomachenko. Salido used a high punch volume body attack to get the better of Lomachenko and pile up a big lead going into the 11th.
Lomachenko was too economical with his punches, and he seemed to be fighting like it was an amateur contest rather than a pro contest. Lomachenko needed to throw a lot more punches, which he eventually did in the 11th and 12th, but he needed to do this in every round of the fight. Lomacheko hurt Salido with a hard shot to the head in the 12th, and he battered him for the entire round. But Salido did a good job of surviving the round. Lomachenko couldn’t handle the body shots from Salido, so he chose to clinch excessively in each round. For a fighter with two Olympic gold medals under his belt, Lomachenlo fought like he’d never been in the ring with someone that threw body shots before.
Salido threw a lot of low blows in the fight, and you can make an argument that the referee should have taken points off. You can also make an argument that Lomachenko should have had points taken off for all the clinching he was doing all fight long, because it was extreme.
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Full remaining undercard results:
Juan Diaz UD 10 Gerardo Robles
Oscar Valdez TKO 3 Samuel Sanchez
Jose Zepeda TKO 2 Johnnie Edwards
Alex Saucedo UD 6 Gilbert Venegas
Jerren Cochran UD 6 Adauto Gonzalez
Ivan Najera UD 8 Angel Hernandez
