Shumenov defeats Flores

By Boxing News - 07/25/2015 - Comments

Image: Shumenov defeats Flores(Photo credit: Suzanne Teresa/Premier Boxing Champions) By Dan Ambrose: Beibut Shumenov (16-1, 10 KOs) schooled longtime veteran BJ Flores (30-2-1, 20 KOs) in defeating him by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night to win the vacant WBA interim cruiserweight title on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the Palms Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The final judges’ were 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. Flores fought well in the middle rounds in putting pressure on Shumenov, who wasn’t throwing enough punches. However, Shumenov took control of the fight from 8th round, and cruised for the last four rounds in outworking Flores and making him look bad with his movement.

In the 12th round, Flores landed a right to the body that caused Shumenov to lose his balance for a second and fall into the ropes. It was possibly enough for Flores to win the round even though Shumenov out-landed him in the round, but it wasn’t enough to get the decision. The Las Vegas crowd heavily booed the decision, as they seemed to believe Flores had done enough to get the victory. It’s hard to agree the fans though because Flores looked clueless in the ring, as if he just learned how to fight and didn’t know how to cut off the ring.

What we learned from this fight is that after 12 years as a pro, Flores still doesn’t know how to cut off a ring.

After the fight, Flores complained bitterly about the decision, saying “The PBC is about guys coming to fight. All he did was run. If he had stood there and fought, I don’t think the fight would have gone six rounds. He wouldn’t try to engage. He was just running around the ring. Tonight, he ran while I fought. Come on, with the punch I landed in the final round, I should have won the fight.”

Shumenov did a good job of landing pot shots, and then making the slower Flores miss with his shots. Shumenov had the hand speed advantage, and he was clearly the more mobile of the two fighters. Flores looked big like a small heavyweight. He seemed to need the smaller Shumenov to stand directly in front of him for him to have a chance of winning, but he wasn’t willing to do that for him. Shumenov used his boxing skills to stay away from Flores, make him miss, and then nail him with pot shots.

With this win, Shumenov now is in position to face WBA cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev. It should be a good fight.

For Flores, it’s hard to know where he can go from here. He’s been hanging around as a pro seemingly forever, but he seemed to have gotten stuck on fighting mediocre 2nd tier fighters. Instead of progressing forward and facing the likes of Rakhim Chakhkiev, Ola Afolabi, Thabiso Mchunu and Dmitry Kudryashov, we’ve seen Flores wasting his time fighting these fighters: Kevin Engel, Anthony Caputo Smith, Adam Collins, David McNemar and Hugo Pineda. If Flores goes back to fighting those types of opponents rather than the above mentioned fighters, I don’t know if he’s ever going to get a world title shot.



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