By John Dower: Unbeaten cruiserweight contender BJ Flores (21-0-1, 13 KOs) won an unimpressive 12-round unanimous decision over Darnell Wilson (22-6-3, 19 KOs) in an International Boxing Federation title eliminator on Friday night at the Dover Downs Hotel and Casino, in Dover, Delaware. The 6’2″ Flores, 29, built up an early lead using his five inch height and reach advantage to jab the shorter Wilson from outside. However, Flores faded badly by round eight, spending the final four rounds running exclusively to try and avoid Wilson’s power shots. The crowd, naturally, booed the action hoping that it would spur Flores to want to fight more. It didn’t work, as he did little in the last four rounds of the fight. I have the fight scored a draw based on Flores’ lack of offensive in the 2nd half of the fight. However, the judges’ scored the fight 115-113, 116-112 and 118-110 for Flores.
In round one, Flores, a former 2001-2002 National amateur champion at 201 lbs and 1997 National Golden Gloves champion at 187 lbs, controlled the round using his long jab to keep the much shorter Wilson bottled up on the outside. Wilson tried numerous times to land a punch, charging at Flores with wild punches. The problem, however, was that Wilson was far too short to be able to consistently land, especially with Flores fighting on his back foot, and retreating backwards every time Wilson would come forward. It looked bad, but it ultimately proved effective for Flores, who would have stood little chance of winning if he had stood his ground and tried to trade with the much more powerful Wilson.
In round three, it appeared that the referee missed a knockdown of Flores, after Wilson clobbered him with a right hand that grazed the top of Flores’ head, causing his knee to touch the ground briefly. It seemed like a legitimate knockout, but unfortunately for Wilson, the referee missed seeing it.
Wilson landed a number of big right hands in the fourth, enough for me to give him the round. Flores will still mostly jabbing, moving side to side and retreating every time Wilson would come at him. It was really ugly boxing to watch because of the running by Flores. I don’t mind a little defensive movement every now and then, don’t get me wrong, but Flores seemed to have his track shoes.
In the fifth round, Flores began bouncing a lot on the outside, wasting energy with this needless movement. I couldn’t figure out why exactly he was doing it, because it wasn’t making him any more effective, other than giving him an extra spring in his step when he decided to start running again, which was often. Wilson continued landing rare shots, but when he did land, they were usually big shots.
Flores continued the bouncing movement in rounds six and seven, adding a lot of circling the ring, as if stalling for time. He did little in round six aside from landing one long right hand that connected to the head of Wilson.
Starting in round eight, it was all Wilson, as Flores had appeared to have exhausted himself with all the bouncing movement and could barely offer up a punch. He could still run, though, which is what Flores did from rounds eight until the eleventh, when he suddenly began throwing jabs again, perhaps after being properly motivated by his cornerman. Wilson easily won the rounds eight-ten, landing huge bombs whenever he could time the constantly moving Flores.
After losing the eleventh round, Wilson came on strong in the twelfth several huge right hands, and left hooks to the head of Flores. For his part, Flores did a lot of clinching and running in the round, trying to prevent Wilson from knocking him out.
Overall, a disappointing performance by Flores. Though he got the victory, I don’t see him beating any of the current cruiserweight champions. For that matter, I see the top prospects in the division – Eric Fields, Alexander Alexeev and Yoan Pablo Hernandez – easily beating him. He’s not a bad fighter, but certainly not top notch in my view of the division talent.