Gesta suffers rib injury, fight with Olusegun is off

By Boxing News - 06/14/2013 - Comments

gesta65By Chris Williams: #10 IBF, lightweight contender Mercito Gesta (26-1-1, 14 KO’s) is reporting that he injured a rib in training for his July 19th fight against Ajose Olusegun (31-1, 14 KO’s), and he’s going to have to cancel the fight because of that.

This may be a lucky break for Gesta because the chances of him beating Olusegun weren’t very good. Olusegun is a very good fighter who gave Lucas Matthysse all he could handle last year in September before getting stopped in the 10th round.

Gesta said on his Facebook “Due to an injury that I suffered today while training, doctors recommended that I cancel my fight on July 19th on ESPN. I apologize to all my fans and supporters around the world. As I feel really disappointed now. I’ll get passed this and will be back stronger!”

I think Gesta should see this as a sign that he needs to go in another direction. Olusegun is just too good for Gesta in my view and I always thought this was a bad match-up for Gesta as soon I heard about this fight.

Olusegun is too advanced for him and much too active and strong. It would have been a mismatch with Olusegun giving Gesta a real pounding.

Gesta, 25, hasn’t fought since losing a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez last December in a fight where Gesta lost by the scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 117-111. That was a really bad mismatch and it was a fight that probably should have never been made in the first place.

Before that fight, Gesta had been matched up against really weak opposition and he’d easily beaten them, but he didn’t have a transition opponent that could get him ready for a fighter like Vazquez. He was kind of thrown out there with Vazquez with very little preparation to get him ready for what he was going to face.

You would think that Gesta’s promoter would have learned his lesson from Gesta’s loss to Vazquez that he needs more preparation before putting him in with good fighters, but I guess they were willing to take that risk.

Putting Gesta in with Olusegun would have been a sink or swim type of fight for Gesta, and I think he would sunk to the bottom quickly. The injury that he suffered to his ribs has to be seen as a positive because now they can start over and find a different opponent for him that is a lot less dangerous than Olusegun.



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