By Jim Dower: In a battle of flawed super bantamweight contenders, Teon Kennedy (17-1-2, 7 KO’s), ranked # IBF, fought to a 10 round majority draw against #10 IBF ranked contender Christopher Martin (23-1-3, 6 KO’s) on Friday night at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The final judges’ scores were 97-93 for Kennedy, 95-95 and 95-95. I had Kennedy winning the fight by a fairly lopsided decision based on his much higher work rate. Although he didn’t have the power that Martin had going for him, he must have out-landed him 3-1 in every round of the fight.
Martin looked good in the first couple of rounds, tagging Kennedy with big hooks and uppercuts. However, starting in the 3rd round the fight changed as Kennedy trapped Martin up against the ropes and landed nicely to win the round.
In the 4th and 5th rounds, Kennedy constantly pressured Martin and pounded him when he would retreat to the ropes. Martin landed an excellent right uppercut in the 4th.
Martin was getting dominated by Kennedy until the last 30 second in the 6th round, but flurried on him with power shots to possibly win the round. In rounds 7 through 9, Kennedy dominated the action with his higher punch output. Martin looked as if he didn’t want to be there and didn’t even try to match Kennedy’s workrate.
In the 10th round, Martin made the mistake of taking his eyes off of Kennedy to take a sneak peak at the time clock to see how much time was left in the round and got nailed with a hard left hook to the head. Kennedy continued to dominate the rest of the round until ran out.
Overall, I saw this as a poorly scored fight.
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In other action on the card, former Cuban amateur star and 2008 Olympic lightweight bronze medalist Yordenis Ugas (11-0, 5 KO’s) defeated 31-year-old Esteban Almaraz (10-5, 4 KO’s) by an eight round unanimous decision in welterweight action. The final judges’ scores were 79-72, 79-72 and 80-71, all for the 25-year-old Ugas.
Ugas looked good for the most part showing good power, an excellent jab and superb defense. However, his work rate wasn’t what it should be, as he pecked away at Almaraz instead of really going after him the way that pros do. It looked as if Ugas was still fight in an amateur type pattern of just looking to score points instead of looking for a knockout.
Ugas knocked Almaraz down with a straight hand in the 1st round, but couldn’t put him down for the remainder of the fight. In the 8th round, Almarez came alive and put a lot of pressure on Ugas, hitting him with some really good shots. He didn’t hurt Ugas but he may have created a blueprint how to beat the Cuban for future opponents because Ugas didn’t look good when getting pressured.