Willie “The Great” Nelson earned a hard fought ten round unanimous decision over Luciano “El Principito” Cuello in the super welterweight fight, as he controlled the majority of the bout except for the seven and tenth round.
Cuello landed 34 power shots in each of these two rounds and had Nelson in some serious trouble, yet Cuello inexplicitly didn`t go for the knockout, allowing Nelson to clinch his way out of trouble. Nelson upped his record to 21-1-1, 12KOs and retained his North American Boxing Federation Belt for the second time. Cuello fell to 32-3, 16KOs with all of his losses coming against good competition, the other two being against Julio Caesar Chavez, Jr. and Canelo Alvarez.
All of these boxing matchups were on the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin vs. Matthew Macklin middleweight champion matchup which happened on Saturday, June 29th at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino at the MGM Grand Theater in Mashantucket, Connecticut.
“I felt great, however, it was a much more difficult fight than I thought it would be and the cut (it was opened in the third round and then reopened in the tenth round) really bothered me,” said Nelson. “I want to fight all the top 154 fighters and I believe this victory was a step in the right direction.”
The crowd didn`t like the scoring of two scores of 97-93 and one score of 96-94, all for Nelson, but Nelson controlled the majority of the rounds, took the fight to Cuello and outworked him while Cuello only did well in the seventh and tenth round. Nelson threw and landed more punches than Cuello. He threw 649 punches, landed 231 of them for a 36 percent accuracy while Cuello threw 553 punches, connected on 198 of them for a 36 percent accuracy.
Nelson, from Cleveland, Ohio won his fifth consecutive fight since his lost to Vincent Arroyo. He has good boxing skills and a great deal of fighting experience, however, if he wants to take it to the next level against the super welterweight world champions, he needs to improve his defense, especially against powerful punchers, which he can do by using his jab more and by fighting more on the outside than on the inside, like he was doing against Cuello.
Thomas “Tommy Gun” Oosthuizen and Brandon “Flawless” Gonzales battled to a extremely competitive back and forth bout that really could have gone either way, but a draw was not a bad decision either. Both fighters, with the draw, kept their undefeated records intact as Oosthuizen is 21-0-2, 13KOs while Gonzales is 17-0-1, 10KOs. Oosthuizen`s International Boxing Organization Super Middleweight Belt was not on the line in this fight.
Gonzales, who was fighting only his third bout in the last two years, didn`t show any ring rust in the early going, as he took the fight to Oosthuizen by being more aggressive, throwing and landing more punches and was also connecting on the much harder shots. Gonzales, controlled most of the first five rounds of this ten round super middleweight fight, however, it appeared that he tired a bit in the second half and was not as accurate with his punches as he was in the early going of the bout. The highly touted, South African, suffered a cut on his left eyebrow in the fifth round and from that point on he showed his experience and a greater sense of urgency, as he knew the fight was slipping away from him and started to connect more on his punches and became more aggressive than Gonzales, for the rest of the fight.
“I felt good and I know I absolutely won this fight,” said Gonzales. “I threw the harder punches and I completely out boxed him, however the judges didn`t see it that way and there is nothing I can do about it.” I`ll go back to the drawing board and get better for my next fight.” Oosthuizen was not available for comments immediately after the bout.
Oosthuizen threw 478 punches, connected on 160 of them for a 33 percent accuracy while Gonzales threw 545 punches, connected on 164 of them for a 30 percent accuracy. Gonzales out landed Oosthuizen in six of the ten rounds and landed the much harder punches but Oosthuizen was more accurate and fought better in spurs than Gonzales did. Scores were 98-92 for Gonzales, which was too wide of a scoring margin, 96-94 for Oosthuizen and 95-95. Hopefully, both of these men agree to a rematch at some point this year and finalize who`s the better fighter between them.
Danny “Danny Bhoy” O Connor had the support of a large and raucous fan base as he controlled the fight against Hector “Hurricane” Munoz and improved his record to 21-1,7KOs with the eight round unanimous decision victory. He has won seven consecutive fights since his lone loss to Gabriel Bracero. Munoz with the loss, fell to 21-11-1, 14KOs and every time he steps up in competition, he falls short, as he did against Shawn Porter and Mike Jones.
O` Connor, the 2008 Olympic alternate, looked sharp throughout the night and brought the fight to Munoz who is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He displayed a great jab which set up his combinations nicely, had good defense and pretty much landed whenever he wanted to. He suffer a cut over his left eye in the fourth round of this junior middleweight fight, but his cut man, Mark Vaz, did a good job at sealing up the wound. O` Connor from Framingham, Massachusetts, won by three scores of 79-73.
One of the top New England prospect, Luis “The KO King” Rosa, won every round over Jose Angel Beranza by three scores of 79-72, with Rosa being deducted a point for a couple of low punches in the fourth round. The 22 year old from New Haven, Connecticut, landed whatever he threw throughout this eight round featherweight bout and had Beranza, from Mexico City, Mexico backing up all night.
Rosa had a great fifth, seventh and eighth round as he was trying hard to knockout Beranza, who somehow managed to stay on his feet and finished the fight. Beranza to his credit was active with his hands and try to go on the offensive against Rosa, however, he was severely overmatched against the younger and quicker fighter. Rosa upped his record to 14-0, 6KOs, in his third fight of the year. Beranza, dropped his record to 36-27-2, 28KOs and has lost four of his last five fights.
Dustin Harrison kept his undefeated record intact as he improved to 16-0, 9KOs over Ben “Congo Soldier” Ankrah who fell to 17-16, 8KOs, in this six round welterweight fight that Harrison dominated from start to finish. Harrison, from Washington D.C. landed at will while Ankrah, from Chicago, Illinois, by way of Ghana, hardly threw any punches, especially in the first three rounds, as he in defensive mode for most of the bout. Harrison, who is only 19 years old, prevailed by two scores of 60-54 and one score of 59-55.