(Photo credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Jim Dower: Interim WBA featherweight champion Jesus Andres Cuellar (26-1, 20 KOs) of Argentina made easy work of an over-matched Ruben Tamayo (23-5-4, 15 KOs) on Saturday night in stopping him in the 5th round at the Little Creek Casino Resort, in Shelton, Washington, USA.
Cuellar, 27, knocked Tamayo down twice with body shots in the 4th round, and then dropped him again with another body shot in the 5th. Referee Mark Nelson halted the fight at 1:48 of the 5th.
Cuellar had previously destroyed former two division world champion Juan Manuel Lopez in his previous fight last September.
Tamayo was no match for the aggressive Cuellar, but then again this wasn’t really supposed to be a competitive fight. It was a mismatch coming in and it turned out unfortunately to be a much worse one than many boxing fans expected it to be. Cuellar put constant pressure on Tamayo from the outset with his nonstop punching, and Tamayo didn’t have the power, defense or mobility to compete with him. It was like Cuellar was attacking a punching bag all night long because Tamayo was just covering up and taking total punishment.
In the 4th, Cuellar knocked Tamayo down with a left to the body while they were in the center of the ring. Moments later, Cuellar dropped Tamayo again this time with a right to the body.
In the 5th, Cuellar backed Tamayo up against the ropes and then unloaded on him with a flurry of shots until he dropped from a body shot. The fight was then stopped.
Cuellar later said he’d be interested in facing former three division world champion Abner Mares next.
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In the co-feature, featherweight contender Gary Russell Jr (25-1, 14 KOs) had his way with Christopher Martin (28-5-3, 9 KOs) in beating him by a 10 round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 100-90, 100-90, and 99-91.
This was a confidence builder type of a fight for Russell Jr, who was beaten in his last fight by Vasyl Lomachenko. Martin didn’t have the hand speed or the power to make a fight of it against Russell Jr, however. This made it easy for Russell Jr to post shot his way to an easy one-sided decision. In the 4th round, Russell Jr backed up against the ropes temporarily to let Martin get some shots off. Russell Jr then flurried on him with some blazing fast hands to end the round. It looked like a sparring session rather than an actual fight.
Russell Jr needs to step it up a level in competition because he’s only fought one good opponent during his career in Lomachenko with the rest of his opponents being very weak. You can make an argument that one of the reasons why Russell Jr was so out of his class against Lomachenko is because he had no real preparation for that fight in terms of having fought quality opposition before.
Russell Jr went from fighting 2nd and 3rd tier opposition to facing Lomachenko overnight, and the outcome was predictable. Now Russell Jr is going back to the 2nd tier opposition, and you have to wonder how long he’ll face these type of fighters before he steps it up again.
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In other boxing results on the card:
Julius Jackson TKO 9 Jonathan Nelson
Tony Harrison TKO 1 Tyrone Brunson
Fabian Maidana TKO 2 Dustin Caplinger
Julian Williams KO 8 Jamar Freeman
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