By Manuel Perez: Undefeated welterweight contender Mike Jones (16-0, 14 KOs) overcame an early bad start to stop journeyman Luciano Perez (16-9-1, 14 KOs) in the 3rd round of a scheduled 10-round bout at the Sovereign Center, in Reading, Pennsylvania. After losing both the 1st and 2nd rounds, the knockout artist Jones, 25, suddenly caught Perez with a huge left hook to the head in the 3rd, stunning him and snapping his head backwards.
Jones then followed with another big left hook that caught Perez just as he was throwing a right hook of his own, sending him down to the canvas. Badly hurt, Perez got up off the canvas and walked groggily to referee Gary Rosato at his request. However, Rosato didn’t like the looks of his condition and immediately stopped the fight at 1:56 of the round.
For Jones, ranked #11 in the World Boxing Association rankings, it keeps him on the winning track in his three year professional career. However, he looked far from impressive in the fight, missing often, looking clumsy and uncoordinated, and getting hit a lot by Perez.
It wasn’t just that he was getting hit so much, it was that he was getting backed up and caught on the ropes by Perez. This is the type of fighter that Jones should have been able to easily beat if he were a serious contender and not merely a good B-class fighter.
As it turned out, Perez looked to be the better fighter of the two up until the time that he ran into a big left hook late in the 3rd round. Up until then, he was pressing the fight to Jones, backing him up and nailing him with hard hooks to the body and head. Jones looked decidedly worried and confused, appearing not to know what to do against Perez.
Finally, in the 3rd, he started used his 5’11” height to jab the shorter 5’6″ Perez from a distance. The jabbing worked well for Jones, as he was finally able to keep Perez from landing his big shots. At the same time, it gave Jones room to land a big left hook that stunned Perez, hurting him.
Although Perez fired back with a couple of good right hands of his own, he seemed to be fighting back on instinct and was still hurt. Seconds later, Jones went back to what was working for him and landed sledgehammer left hook that rocked Perez.
Then when Perez attempted to throw a right hook, Jones beat him to the punch by hitting him with another big left hook, this one sending Perez crashing to the canvas in a heap. He slowly got to his feet, barely, and stood there for a second before being asked to walk towards the referee. At that point the fight was stopped.
Despite getting another knockout victory, Jones once again looked poor and clearly not ready to step it up against the likes of Paul Williams, Andre Berto, Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto, as far as I’m concerned.
Based on the handful of fights I’ve seen of him, I doubt that he will ever be good enough to beat those guys. Jones might be better served considering moving up to the light middleweight division. He looks awfully big for a welterweight, and he might be a better fit as a light middleweight, where he could have a better chance against the slightly less skilled fighters in that division.