Javier Fortuna vs. Jason Sosa results

By Boxing News - 06/25/2016 - Comments

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By Jim Dower: #8 WBA Jason Sosa (19-1-4, 15 KOs) put in a great performance in defeating WBA World super featherweight champion Javier Fortuna (29-1-1, 21 KOs) by an 11th round knockout last Friday night at the Capital Gym, in Beijing, China. Sosa, 28, knocked Fortuna down twice in dropping him in the 10th and 11th rounds.

The fight was stopped by referee Raul Caiz Jr. in the 11th after Sosa had knocked Fortuna down with a big left hook to the head followed by two hard right hands. Fortuna, 26, made it back to his feet, but the referee Caiz Jr. decided to halt the fight anyway after seeing how hurt Fortuna was.

The official time of the stoppage was at 0:45 of round 11. Immediately after the fight was stopped, Fortuna was staggering around and seemingly in need of help by Caiz Jr. It’s good thing that the fight was halted, because Sosa would have flattened the badly hurt Fortuna with the amount of time remaining in the round.

There was too much time and was badly hurt. At the time of the stoppage, the southpaw Fortuna was ahead on all three of the judges’ scorecards by the scores 96-91, 95-92 and 94-93.
In the 10th round, Sosa badly hurt Fortuna with a scorching left hook to the jaw that whip-lashed his head. Fortuna was holding on after that, and trying to keep Sosa from finishing him off.

When the referee separated the two fighters, it was clear that Fortuna was badly hurt because his legs looked rubbery. Sosa partially pushed Fortuna to the canvas while being held by him. The referee counted it as a knockdown due to Fortuna holding so that he wouldn’t go down. While he was on the canvas, Fortuna spit out his mouthpiece in a move that appeared to be an attempt for him to buy time to recover. Caiz Jr. then took one point away from Fortuna for spitting out his mouthpiece.

After the action resumed, Sosa continued to stalk Fortuna around the ring, landing shots, and frequently getting held. After the round ended, it seemed obvious that Fortuna wasn’t going to make it through the 11th round. He was both tired and badly hurt from that left hook from the previous round.

Even if Fortuna hadn’t been hurt though, he likely would have been too exhausted to make it out of the 11th with the pressure that Sosa was putting on him. Sosa swinging for the fences for the entire fight, and it eventually caught up to Fortuna with him taking too many hard shots and not being able to make it out of the 11th.

Fortuna dominated most of the other rounds of the fight with him using a lot of movement, pot shotting, and holding. The referee gave Fortuna four warnings for his holding, but he surprisingly never took any points away. Without Fortuna’s frequent holding, the fight likely would have ended many rounds earlier, because he was preventing Sosa from throwing punches when he would come in close trying to land his big power shots.

In the 5th, Fortuna knocked Sosa down with a left hook to the head. Sosa wasn’t hurt. It was more of a balance thing. After Sosa got back up, Fortuna briefly attempted to finish him off, but he wasn’t able to land anything with the amount of time remaining in the round.

Fortuna looked pretty good in the fight through the first eight rounds. While Sosa was landing occasional big shots, Fortuna was clearly getting the better of him in each round. Sosa appeared to win rounds three and seven. Those were clearly his best rounds in the first eight rounds of the contest. However, Sosa and Fortuna fought in close in the 9th round with both guys landing big shots. Sosa’s shots took a lot out of Fortuna. After the round ended, Fortuna appeared tired and starting to feel the effects of the hard shots that Sosa was landing.

It’s not surprising that Sosa won this fight, because he looked very good in his previous fight against former WBA featherweight champion Nicholas Walters last December. That fight was scored a 10 round draw. Walters felt that he should have won, but Sosa outworked and out-slugged Walters in many of the rounds.