By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated super featherweight prospect Argenis Mendez (11-0, 8 KOs) had a much tougher than expected time in the process of defeating the tough Mexican Oscar De La Cruz (5-5, 2 KOs) by fifth round TKO on Friday night at the Aviator Sports Arena, in Brooklyn, New York.
Mendez, a former 2004 Olympian for the Dominican Republic Olympic team, had to overcome fierce resistance from Cruz, 31, taking a lot of punishment from before stopping him with a flurry of punches in the 5th round. Mendez, who had a an impressive amateur record of 238-12, was fought almost to a standstill by the game Cruz, who kept coming forward all fight long, pressuring the tall 5’10” Mendez, and forcing him to trade on the inside where he was less adept than Cruz.
In the 1st round, Cruz came boring in on Mendez, looking like a smaller version of Rocky Marciano as he threw huge hooks with both hands, connecting often with powerful head shots. Mendez, only 21, showed that he has a lot to learn despite his extensive amateur background. He fought tall most of the time, standing upright and showing a weakness for anything that Cruz threw at him.
When Mendez was on offensive, he was clearly out of Cruz’s class, in that he had impressive power and especially impressive form. However, he wasn’t nearly as busy as Cruz, which meant that we mostly got to see Mendez on defense against Cruz. In that respect, Mendez looked plain awful for a prospect. Cruz kept the pressure on him, and ended up throwing almost a hundred punches in the round.
Cruz’s high volume offensive caught up with him in the second round when he got tagged with a scorching right hand from Mendez, hurting him badly. For the last 40 seconds of the round, Mendez pounded Cruz unmercibly with combinations, but was unable to finish him off. It showed that Mendez was a fighter that you can’t take lightly even for a second, for he lays dormant for a period and then explodes with a furry of punches, all with knockout intentions. Cruz was lucky that the round ended when it did, because I highly doubt he could have with stood another 20-30 seconds of non-stop pounding from Mendez.
In the third round, Cruz looked no worse for the wear, showing almost zero effects of the abuse that he had taken in the previous round. Once again, Cruz started in with his all out attack of Mendez, ripping punches to the head and body. For his part, Mendez looked like he didn’t know what was hitting him. He seemed ill at ease, almost embarrassed like he wasn’t expecting Cruz to be so tough. Whatever the case, Mendez was having a hard time adjusting to Cruz’s busy style. Although Mendez did land some particularly powerful shots in the third, he was getting hit with punches from Cruz that were almost as hard as the punches he was landing on him, except that Cruz was hitting him a lot.
Mendez had his moments in the 4th round, especially in the middle of the round when he landed a string of powerful straight right hands to the head of Cruz. Mendez seems to forgo throwing hooks, believing the best punches are perfectly straight shots. In that, Mendez was able to beat Cruz to the punch at times, whether close or at a distance, catching Cruz with straight shots while he was attempting to throw hooks. However, the 5th round mostly belonged to the 31 year-old Cruz, who just never let up on Mendez for an instant, as he returned fire every time Mendez would land a shot of his own.
In the 5th round, Cruz was teeing off on Mendez, hitting him over and over with double left hooks to the head and getting the crowd into the fight in a big way. However, around the middle of the round after landing a triple left hook to the head of Mendez, it seemed to anger Mendez for the first time in the fight, for immediately after those punches landed, he opened up with a brutal flurry of shots that hurt Cruz and had him falling into the ropes badly hurt.
The referee stepped in and stopped the fight at 1:18 of the 5th round. Just like that, the fight was over. The stoppage was shocking to say the least, in that Cruz was taking charge of the fight at the time he was stopped, and it came about so sudden.
Mendez showed what he’s capable of doing when he’s got his head into the fight. I think he’s definitely better than he showed against Cruz; He just needed the right circumstances to get himself into the fight. Its too bad that it took Mendez so long to get it together. That said, Mendez has a lot of work to do, starting with his defense which is rather porous to say the least.