Bernabe Concepcion Disqualified Against Luevano, Lands Cheap Shot

By M. Perez: With the fight getting out of hand in the 7th round, featherweight Bernabe Conception (28-3-1, 16 KO’s) evened the score by landing a picturesque right hand that flattened World Boxing Organization featherweight champion Steven Luevano (37-1-1, 15 KO’s) well after the bell on Saturday night, at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Naturally, Conception, 21, was immediately disqualified by referee Jay Nady. Incredibly, Conception’s trainer, boxing genius Freddie Roach, attempted to argue the disqualification with Nady, saying that it wasn’t intentional. Nady was having none of it and shouted Roach down.

The punch, a right hand that landed to the jaw of Luevano, came well after the bell and seemed intentional from appearances. Luevano was dominating Conception with his jab and excellent boxing skills, making Conception look like an amateur in there.

At the end of the 7th, the bell rang and Luevano put his hands down and started walking forward, as if was going to say “nice round’ to Conception, when suddenly Conception tagged him with a right hand to the head sending Luevano down on the canvas where he laid there badly hurt from the late hit.

It’s hard not to see the punch for anything than it was. It looked like Filipino was frustrated by the slick Luevano and took the opportunity to get in a free shot after the round had ended. I don’t know how Conception could have failed to see that the round was over.

I mean, the bell sounded, Luevano put his hands down and started walking in a normal manner that a person does when not fighting. I don’t see how Conception could have been fooled into thinking the round was still underway, especially given that Nady was walking up to them on the left and was making sure that they were clear that the round was over.

It was bad. I really don’t see how Conception failed to notice that the round had ended because it seemed pretty obvious to me and I was just watching the fight. When you’re in the ring, with your opponent right in front of you, it’s hard to see how a fighter would miss something like this.

Who knows? Maybe Conception did miss the signal that the round had ended. It will teach Luevano to keep his hands up at all times when/if he ends up fighting Conception again. Hopefully, the late punch won’t have any lasting effects for Luevano because he wasn’t expecting the late hit and was taken off guard.

If not for the late punch, Luevano looked to be well on his way to winning the fight by a lopsided decision. Conception, who looked badly over-muscled with a lot of useless upper body muscle, only fought well in the 1st round when he landed some power punches with his right hand.

After the 1st, Luevano took control over the fight using his jab and straight left hands. Conception was caught often by right hooks from Luevano when the Filipino would try to get in close to land his punches. I think this made Conception nervous about attacking, because starting in the 2nd, Conception stopped throwing combinations and focused on throwing exclusively pot shots.

In rounds three through six, Luevano easily dominated the action with his jabs and left hands. He kept the action on the outside where Conception was nearly helpless. Roach tried to give Conception advise between rounds, telling him to throw more punches and move his head, but the Roach’s advice failed to bear fruit for Conception because Luevano kept firing back with shots.

By the 7th, Conception already looked frustrated and defeated. When the late hit occurred, I frankly wasn’t all that surprised because Luevano was giving Conception a boxing lesson in there.

All I can say is that Conception needs to lose some of that useless muscle on his upper body and consider moving down in weight to the super bantamweight division. All that muscle isn’t helping Conception be a better fighter and I can’t see him doing well against the other featherweights in the division like Chris John, Cristobol Cruz and Takahiro Aoh. I doubt Conception would do any better against the super bantamweight champions Celestino Caballero, Juan Manuel Lopez, and Toshiaki Nishioka, but he’d have a better chance than against the likes of Conception.

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