(Photo Credit: Suzanne Teresa/Premier Boxing Champions) Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (33-3-1, 18 KOs) had to get up off the deck in the 4th round to rally to beat Aaron Martinez (19-4-1, 4 KOs) by a controversial 10 round split decision at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Guerrero dropped hard in the 4th round after getting nailed by four hard head shots from Martinez.
To Guerrero’s credit, he got back to his feet and was able to rally to win the fight by dominated four of the last five rounds. Guerrero appeared to lose the 7th, as well as rounds 1 through 5, but the judges felt that he did enough to get the win. The scores were 97-92, 95-94 for Guerrero, and 95-94 for Martinez. I had Martinez winning the fight. Guerrero looked terrible out there, and I don’t think he should have been given the decision.
Martinez was constantly backing Guerrero up to the ropes in rounds 1 through 5, and doing a good job of getting the better of him each time. I didn’t give Guerrero any of the first five rounds. I thought he was clearly out-worked by Martinez.
In the 2nd half of the fight, Guerrero did a better job of staying in the center of the ring and was able to control every round except for the 7th.
For Guerrero, this was his fourth consecutive poor performance dating back to his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013. The last time that Guerrero looked good in a fight was in 2012 when he beat Andre Berto. Since then, Guerrero has struggled in fights against Mayweather, Yoshihiro Kamegai, Keith Thurman and Martinez. With the way Guerrero is looking right now, he might want to consider retirement because he doesn’t look like he’s at the top of his game any longer. You’d had to see him become little more than an old trial horse for the younger contenders to beat up in order to get an old name on their resume.
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39-year-old Vic Darchinyan (40-8-1, 29 KOs) tasted defeat once again in getting stopped in the 8th round by WBA World featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar (27-1, 21 KOs). Cuellar had problems connecting with his big power shots through most of the fight, but in the 8th round he caught Darchinyan with a right hand while he was pulling away with his hands down. The shot knocked Darchinyan down and badly hurt him. Darchinyan got to his feet but was hit by a blizzard of punches while trapped against the ropes. Darchinyan’s corner then tossed in the white towel of surrender.
In hindsight, you have to ask the question what had Darchinyan done to deserve a world title fight against Cuellar. Before this fight, Darchinyan had lost 4 out of last 7 fights. It made no sense at all for Darchinyan to be given a title shot with a record like that. What was even worse was how small Darchinyan, a former flyweight, looked compared to the much bigger and heavier looking Cuellar.
The win proved nothing other than Cuellar is slow, easy to hit, and not particularly skillful. I don’t think Cuellar would do well against the other featherweight champions. He showed he can beat 39-year-old Darchinyan, but that’s all he showed.
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Middleweight Alfredo Angulo (23-5, 19 KOs) picked up his first victory since 2012 in defeating Delray Raines (20-11-1, 14 KOs) by a 5th round stoppage after knocking him down three times in the fight. The bout was stopped in the 5th round after Angulo put Raines down twice with right hands to the head. In the 4th, Angulo also dropped Raines with a right. The fight was stopped at 2:16 of the round. Despite getting the win, Angulo didn’t look at all good, as he was beaten to the punch frequently by the quicker Raines, who is little more than a journeyman.
Angulo is going to have a tough time trying to find success in the middleweight division, because he doesn’t have the speed to compete against the good middleweights. As long as Angulo keeps getting matched against guys like Raines, he’ll be fine. But if he faces someone good, I believe he’ll lose every time.
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#12 WBO fringe contender Dominic “Trouble” Breazeale (15-0, 14 KOs) blasted out an over-matched but faster Yasmany Consuegra (17-1, 14 KOs) in the 3rd round. The fight was stopped at 1:49 of the 3rd. Breazeale flattened Consuegra once in the 2nd and two times in the 3rd. Breazeale was hit constantly by clean right hands by Consuegra in the 1st and also the 2nd. It was lucky for Breazeale that Consuegra didn’t have huge punching power otherwise we would have seen this fight end early with Breazeale losing.
