Gesta wins controversial decision over Manuel Perez

By Boxing News - 09/21/2011 - Comments

Image: Gesta wins controversial decision over Manuel PerezBy Chris Williams: Lost in the attention received from the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Victor Ortiz bout last Saturday night was a fight between undefeated lightweight contender Mercito Gesta (23-0, 12 KO’s) and second tier trial horse Manuel Perez (16-7-1, 4 KO’s) at the Bluewater Resprt & Casino in Parker, Arizona. Gesta has no defense for a right hand. It’s like he’s blind to stop them. Perez really outworked him in this fight.

This was supposed to be an easy win for Gesta, ranked #5 WBO, #9 WBA, as Perez had been fairly easily handled by the likes of Brandon Rios and Diego Magdaleno recently. However, instead of Gesta winning this fight easily, he struggled badly, I mean really badly in winning this fight by a very controversial 10 round unanimous decision by the scores of 98-92, 99-91 and 98-92.

The crowd loudly booed the results, not agreeing with Gesta being given the decision and certainly not agreeing to those ridiculous scores. I personally had Perez winning the fight by 6 rounds to 4, and no way could I see a case were Gesta should have won. He didn’t do enough in many of those rounds. Gesta reminds me a lot of heavyweight David Tua [in his late 30s] with his inability to let his hands go, his too patient way of fighting and his tendency to load up on everything he throws.

Gesta wasn’t throwing enough punches in pretty much every round and that silly grin that he was constantly wearing on his face, as if he had the fight in the bag when he was getting totally outworked, made him look like he didn’t understand how average he is. If you ignore the lopsided scores, which were a joke, you’ve got to realize that Gesta is going to be in deep, deep trouble when they put him in with a good 1st tier fighter.

Perez was a second tier fighter and look how bad Gesta looked. This isn’t the next Manny Pacquiao like a lot of his fans seem think he is. Gesta has got some serious flaws that I really don’t think he’s going to be able to fix for him to get to another level. He’s ranked high, but I don’t think he deserves his ranking.

You put Gesta in with someone like Brandon Rios last Saturday night, and forget it. Gesta would get destroyed. Gesta looked terrible. He got badly outworked by Perez in almost every round. I give Gesta some credit for coming back and winning some of the rounds after the 6th round, but he didn’t sweep the last four rounds. I had him winning the 7th and the 10th.

Other than that, he only won the 4th and 5th rounds on my card and looked so painfully bad that it wasn’t funny. It was actually sad. This isn’t the next Pacquiao and I don’t know how they’re going to make Gesta any better than he is. He’s short, moves slowly, gasses out after he’s throws punches, and is so hittable.

I see Gesta as a fringe contender at best, and that’s being kind. You put him in with the top contenders in the lightweight or light welterweight division and Gesta will get destroyed. I think they need to go back to the drawing board with this guy, because he’s got too many flaws. Maybe they need to start over with Gesta from the start and try to work on his defense, conditioning and try to fix his poor workrate.



Comments are closed.