Roberto Garcia defeats Atwone Smith; De La Rosa decisions Brunson

By Boxing News - 03/23/2012 - Comments

By Allan Fox: On Friday night on ESPN2, junior middleweight slugger Roberto Garcia (31-3, 21 KO’s) pounded out a 10 round unanimous decision over 25-year-old former welterweight contender Antwone Smith (21-4-1, 12 KO’s) at the Convention Center, in Pharr, Texas. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93. It was pretty one-sided, as the 31-year-old Garcia had a huge power advantage against the tall, slender Smith, who has now lost two out of his last three fights.

Garcia is the same fighter that was dominated by a comebacking Antonio Margarito in a 10 round unanimous decision loss to Margarito in May 2010. What’s notable about that fight is that Garcia was the harder puncher of the two and had Margarito backing up for the entire fight and looking to box rather than slug. His power had disappeared on him completely.

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On the undercard of tonight’s fight, welterweight prospect James De La Rosa (21-1, 12 KO’s), coming off of a loss to Allen Conyers last year in January, defeated Tyrone “Young Gun” Brunson (21-2-1, 20 KO’s) by an eight round unanimous decision. Brunson, a big puncher, knocked De La Rosa to the canvas in the 2nd round. However, De La Rosa got up off the canvas to dominate Brunson for the rest of the way.

Brunson is the same fighter that started his career with 18 straight knockout victories over 2nd and 3rd tier opposition until being held to a six round draw against one of the 2nd tier fighters. Brunson has had problems since stepping it up against B level fighters in 2009 and now has lost his last two fights. Tonight’s fight was Brunson’s first fight since December, 2009, when he was beaten by Carson Jones. Hopefully, Brunson doesn’t stay out of the ring for another two years before he fights again because he’s really hurting himself with that kind of inactivity.



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