By Manuel Perez: Undefeated lightweight prospect Orlando Felix (10-0, 3 KOs) defeated Carlos Claudio (8-3-1, 2 KOs) by an impressive six-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Coliseo Antonio R. Barcelo, in Toa Baja. The final judges’ scores were 59-55, 59-55 and 59-55, all for Felix. Felix, 22, showed incredible speed and power early on, firing off combinations at will and giving the smaller 20 year-old Claudio problems.
However, Felix seemed to fight much too conservatively for much of the fight, treating the light-hitting Claudio as if he were a knockout threat despite the clear indication that he was not anything of that sort. Much of the time, Felix fought very careful, throwing jabs and watching closely for return fire from Claudio. Yet when Felix would get hit with something, he would frequently forget his cautious game plan and attack hard with powerful combinations to the head and body of Claudio. It was during these brief exchanges that Felix showed that he may be something special in the future, for he looked very impressive when he was letting his hands go.
The first round was fairly close for most of it, with Claudio showing fast hands, an excellent jab during for the most part. In the last 15 seconds of the round, Felix suddenly unloaded with an impressive combination to the head of Claudio. It was a lightning fast attack and astonishing how much distance Felix made up when he attacked, for he was far apart when he started his attack, yet ended up right on top of Claudio in a fraction of a second. It was too bad that Felix didn’t let his hands go more in the round, because he looked like he could have ended things at any time if he let loose with one long sustained attack.
Felix came out fast in the 2nd round, hitting Claudio with a monstrous left hook to the head. He added more big shots, hitting Claudio with repeated combinations while moving around the ring looking for angles. Claudio circled with him, hoping to get in some shots of his own but finding little success. Near the end of the round, Felix attacked swiftly with an excellent combination to the body and head of Claudio.
In the 4th and 5th round, Felix continued using a lot of movement, trying to keep out of distance from Claudio. It seemed like a thoroughly useless maneuver considering that it was he who should have been avoided, because he had the much more lethal power than the light-hitting Claudio. I guess Felix is still too young to realize how much better he was than his opponents, because if he understood it, like perhaps most people who were watching the fight, he would have rolled right over Claudio in an instant.
Instead, however, we had to be content with watching him slowly pick Claudio apart with long right hands and left hooks to the head. By the 5th round, Claudio, possibly after tasting one too many big shots, had slowed down his own offense and was doing little other than following Felix around the ring. Claudio did a lot of running in the 5th round, which made the round somewhat tedious to watch.
In the sixth round, Felix used his jab for most of the round, hitting Claudio constantly and keeping him at range. Near the end of the round, Felix nailed Claudio with a huge right hand but he took it incredibly without going down. The remainder of the fight Felix tagged Claudio with lefts to the head and an occasional right. For his part, Claudio could do nothing to start his own offense and spent the round just taking shots.