(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Jim Dower: Former three division world champion Abner Mares (27-1-1, 14 KO’s) defeated the bigger and stronger Jonathan Oquendo (24-4, 16 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 96-94, 98-92, 98-92.
Mares dominated the action with his quicker combinations after having a rough first three rounds. In the 4th round, mares suffered a cut over his left eye from what appeared to be a head-butt. Mares’ new trainer Virgil Hunter had Mares focus on his boxing in the last 6 rounds of the fight to minimize the amount of punishment that he absorbed, and it worked well for Mares.
Mares didn’t have the size to stand and trade with the bigger Oquendo for 10 rounds, so he instead moved, punched and stayed out of the way of Oquendo’s big shots.
Oquendo became cautious in the last three rounds of the fight in response to getting hit with a lot of hard shots from Mares while he was coming forward. Mares did a good job of taking the action to the inside where he was able to get the better of Oquendo.
After the fight, Mares said that he wants a rematch against WBC featherweight champion Jhonny Gonzalez, who stopped Mares in the 1st round last year in August.
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Former two division world champion Juan Manuel Lopez (34-4, 31 KO’s) tasted defeat tonight in losing by a 3rd round TKO to #3 WBO Francisco Vargas (20-0-1, 14 KO’s) in super featherweight action at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Vargas went toe-to-toe with the 31-year-old Lopez in dropping him in the closing seconds of the 3rd. Lopez staggered to his feet and was able to make it out of the round. However, in between the 3rd and 4th, his corner pulled the plug on the fight rather than letting the still badly hurt Lopez come out for the fourth.
Lopez didn’t seem to have the presence of mind to box Vargas after he started getting lit up with big shots. He just stayed in the pocket and foolishly traded. I guess Lopez was hoping that he’d be able to out-last Vargas the same way he did in his last fight against Daniel Ponce De Leon last March. It didn’t work tonight for Lopez.
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Mauricio Herrera (21-4, 7 KO’s) put in an excellent performance in defeating the 5’11” Johan Perez (19-2-1, 13 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision to win the WBA interim light welterweight title. The final judges’ scores were 114-114, 116-112 and 116-112. Herrera had been robbed in his previous fight against WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia. It was good to see the judges get the decision right for Herrera this time.
The 5’7″ Herrera had problems with the height and reach of Perez during the early rounds. However, Herrera was able to get inside on Perez from the 5th round on, and get the better of him with short punches to the head. Perez tried to keep Herrera on the outside, but it was futile. Herrera was able to get inside again and again to work Perez over. Perez wasn’t suited for fighting on the inside due to his long arms, and so he took punishment. Herrera appeared to hurt Perez on several occasions in the last 4 rounds. Perez did a good job of continuing to fight hard, but he was definitely getting hurt.
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