Mijares Defeats Munoz By Split Decision

By Boxing News - 05/19/2008 - Comments

mijares4635223.jpgBy Manuel Perez: WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (35-3-2, 14 KOs) added another title to his collection when he defeated WBA super flyweight champion Alexander Munoz (32-3, 27 KOs) by a 12-round split decision to win his WBA super flyweight title at the Auditorio Centenario, Gomez Palacio, in Durango, Mexico, on Saturday night. The final judges’ scores were 116-111, 116-112, for Mijares and 113-115 for Munoz. I personally had Munoz winning the fight by a substantial margin, giving Mijares only three of the rounds.

This was by far the worst I’d seen Mijares fight; He rarely threw punches during most of the rounds, as he consumed most of his time by trying to duck punches and fend off the attack of the aggressive Munoz. It wasn’t until late in the fight when Munoz tired out somewhat that Mijares finally began to let his hands go. Even then, Munoz continued to outwork by a substantial margin and make the fight interesting. Mijares was mostly limited to his jab, which he threw seldom and missed often, and a small amount of counter shots. He looked really fresh in the end compared to Munoz, 29, but then again Mijares had been doing little offensively for most of the fight, allowing Munoz to be the one to fight hard.

Overall, it was a disappointing performance for Mijares, who won by the second consecutive split decision in his last two fights. He clearly needs to work on his offense, because he didn’t deserve to win this fight.

Munoz controlled the fight in rounds one through four, constantly coming forward and tagging Mijares with shots with both hands. Unlike former champion Jorge Arce, who Mijares picked apart in defeating him last year to win his WBC super flyweight title, Munoz was excellent at making Mijares miss with his shots. At the same time, Mijares seemed confused by Munoz’s speed and two-fisted attack, not seeming to know how to deal with it. Most of the time Mijares fought on his back foot, trying to block shots but only succeeding at blocking a few of the many shots Munoz constantly poured in on him.

Munoz did miss a lot of punches, but he was throwing nonstop shots, and would still land a high amount of shots in comparison to Mijares. Really, there was no comparison in terms of punches landed. Munoz was way ahead simply because he was the one throwing all the punches. Mijares prides himself on his defense, which he clearly worked hard on in the fight, yet he was still hit many times in each round despite making Munoz miss a lot. At the same time, Mijares made the mistake of forgetting his own offense, which seemed to give Munoz virtually all the rounds until late in the fight when Munoz tired out a little.

I wasn’t surprised that Mijares won, however, because he’s the more popular fighter and it would have taken a probably knockout for Munoz to win. As it is, as I said, Munoz appeared to win by a large margin. Munoz completely controlled round four, hitting Mijares with a ton of punches to the head and body. He constantly swarmed Mijares, landing short shots on the inside and wide sweeping hooks on the outside. In some ways, he reminded me of Aaron Pryor in that he never seemed to stop punching even for an instant. Mijares, an average offensive fighter, never could match up with him for an instant and quickly fell behind.

After Munoz easily won the 5th round by out-landing Mijares by a wide margin, in the next round Munoz had a point deducted for holding and hitting. It seemed like a quick call by the referee, made probably because Mijares would look at him often and complain a lot in many of the rounds. Instead of seeing it for what it is, the referee took a point away from Munoz. It didn’t matter, though, because Munoz promptly came on strong and evened the round out by winning it with his nonstop punching attack. Mijares wasted a golden opportunity by not letting his hands go more in the round, although he would have never been able to match Munoz’s offensive attack even if he wanted to most probably.

In rounds seven through nine, Munoz began picked up the pace even more, hitting Mijares even more than previous rounds. It seemed impossible that Munoz could improve on his previous rounds because he was already punching nonstop, but he somehow took it up another gear and began to land with an even greater frequency than before. Mijares, for his part, was severely limited with what he could land during these rounds and was only able to counter him on rare occasions. None of the rounds were even slightly close with Munoz appearing to win with ease. Mijares, like always, focused mostly on his defense but was still hit an awful lot regardless of his efforts.

Munoz looked tired in rounds ten and eleven, his punches seeming to have lost much of their steam. He continued to attack as always, but he was missing more of his shots and getting countered on the way in by Mijares. The rounds were close, however, but Mijares appeared to win them narrowly despite being out-landed by Munoz as always.

In the 12th round, Munoz summoned all that he had and took the fight to Mijares once again, hitting him with a ton of shots. Though very tired, Munoz still put his hands on Mijares frequently in the round and appeared to win it by a close margin. Mijares, who looked fresh, still was miserly with his punches, not letting them go even when it counted. It was if he thought he had a big lead and could afford to fight conservatively, which seemed odd considering that Munoz had been all over him in most of the previous rounds. Based on this round alone, Mijares deserved to lose the fight. It was not an impressive performance by him, which is me being kind.