By Manuel Perez: Fresh off his 6th round stoppage at the hands of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., in December 2007, light middleweight Ray Sanchez (21-2, 15 KOs) squeezed out a close 10-round majority decision over Patrick Thompson (13-13-1, 5 KOs) on Friday night at the Isleta Casino & Resort, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The final judges’ scores were 97-93, 96-94 and 95-95. It was a mostly ugly fight with Sanchez doing a lot of running and clinching for most of the bout, and landing counter shots whenever he’d spot an opening in the defense of Thompson.
For his part, Thompson, 35, put a lot of pressure on Sanchez for the entire fight, keeping him against the ropes for much of the action where Thompson would land mostly body shots and a small amount of uppercuts. It looked overall as if Thompson had done more than enough to get the decision but the outcome came to no surprise to me because Sanchez was fighting in his own hometown. Some in the audience weren’t in full agreement with the ultimate decision, however, as they loudly booed Sanchez afterwards. Like I said, he looked to have lost the fight by at least 1-2 rounds, and wasn’t the one making the fight.
After watching a couple of rounds of the fight, I could see clearly why Sanchez was chosen as an opponent for the young Chavez Jr., perhaps because Sanchez has almost zero power to speak of, and mostly pushes his shots in front of him almost like weak jabs. In addition, he doesn’t throw a lot of punches, mostly just moving a lot and throwing rare shots. The 35 year-old Thompson, whom had lost seven out of his last ten fights going into Friday’s bout with Sanchez, looked a lot better than his paltry record as he chased Sanchez around the ring, blasting him with shots whenever Sanchez would stop for a moment.
Sanchez appeared to win the first round by a close margin as he out-punched Thompson in the round, and kept him from scoring due to Sanchez’s constant movement. It was an ugly round but nothing like the dullness of the later rounds in which Sanchez ran almost continuously.
Thompson came back in the 2nd round and fought well, cornering Sanchez often and pounding away at him with hard shots to the head and body. Thompson out-landed Sanchez by a wide margin in the round and kept him busy trying to protect himself from the many shots that Thompson was raining down on him. Sanchez was only able to get a few shots in and looked to be surprised by the attacks of Thompson. Perhaps Sanchez had been thinking that this was going to be an easy win over a C-level fighter, after seeing Thompson’s poor record before the fight. However, it wasn’t turning out that way as Thompson was applying a lot of pressure on Sanchez and forcing him to run and fight for his life.
Sanchez landed a little more in the third round, enough perhaps to win the round. I still thought that Thompson won the round, but with Sanchez’s home crowd loudly cheering his weak pitty-pat shots, I figured that the judges would score the round for Sanchez. However, he only out-landed Thompson by a very close margin and his punches weren’t even close to being as hard as Thompson’s big shots. Based on this, I gave it to Thompson.
Rounds four and five were ugly rounds, with Thompson bulling the weaker Sanchez around, hitting him with big shots and trying to keep him from running all the time. I could see the frustration in Thompson because Sanchez’s side to side movement was rather annoying, in part because he wasn’t really punching, just moving and playing keep away. It was painful to watch and sad because Sanchez should have been doing a lot more based on his inflated record with a high number of wins compared to losses. Thompson appeared to easily win both rounds, due to the fact that he was largely the only one punching during this time.
Sanchez came back in the sixth round and appeared to do enough to get the round. Thompson looked tired, and seemed to be taking the round off after throwing a lot of punches in the two previous rounds. By the end of the round, Sanchez was starting to show swelling under both of his eyes from the many hard shots he’d taken from Thompson.
In the 7th round, both fighters exchanged shots at close range and again, Thompson was the busier fighter. However, the crowd continued to scream loudly whenever Sanchez would land a weak arm punch, and it seemed like a round that the judges would give to Sanchez. Thompson still landed the much harder blows in the round and there was no question that he had won the round in my mind. There was a lot of clinches in the round, most initiated by Sanchez who seemed to use them to try and shut down the attacks of Thompson. It was an effective strategy, but terrible to watch as far as entertainment goes.
In rounds eight through ten, Thompson totally dominated the action as he kept Sanchez pinned against the ropes for much of the time taking shots. By this time, the fight had become really sloppy, with both fighters mauling each other with a lot of wrestling on the inside. The referee appeared to miss a knockdown in the 9th round after Thompson nailed Sanchez with a shot to the shoulder that caused him to drop to the canvas and touch his glove to keep from falling. It looked like a legitimate knockdown to me. The 10th round was all Thompson, who pounded the stuffing out of Sanchez virtually every second of the round with big shots.