By “Big” Nate Anderson: Super bantamweight contender Antonio Escalante (17-2, 10 KOs) won a relatively easy 10-round unanimous decision over Jose Angel Beranza (30-12-2, 25 KOs) on Friday night at the Castle, in Boston, Massachusetts. Although virtually every round was dominated the 22 year-old Escalante, you wouldn’t know it by looking at his face, for he was cut over his right eye, and both his nose left eye had considerable swelling, making him look as if he were hit by a truck.
The funny thing of it was, Escalante wasn’t hit all that much in the fight, for he was able to avoid many of Beranza’s wild shots for the most part. However, Beranza, a fighter with very heavy hands and high percentage of knockout victories, seemed to have lead in his shots judging by the look of Escalante’s face by round eight. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 100-92, and 96-94, all for Escalante.
Ranked #7 in the World Boxing Organization super bantamweight division, Escalante was clearly a class above Beranza, who was entering the bout with seven losses out of his last twelve fights. It wasn’t going to be competitive going into the fight, but it was more lopsided and dull than I imagined it would be, that is, unless you’re into watching one-sided fights involving bad matchmaking.
In rounds 1-3, Escalante showed his superior speed and fire power, as he landed a large amount of left hooks to the head and body. He made no secret of his main weapon being his left hook, hitting the slow, plodding Beranza with it often. Escalante would mix in an occasional chopping right hand, but he little power in this weapon, and it appeared to be a punch that he needs to put a lot of work on. For his part, Beranza was mostly wild with his punches, missing badly often as he tried to hit Escalante with big home run shots. After awhile, Beranza seemed to settle for just throwing jabs, perhaps figuring that he’d have better luck with this punch. He did. However, Beranza’s jabs were no match for the numerous left hooks that Escalante was unloading on him, and he quickly fell behind in the fight.
Escalante began moving more in the 4th and 5th rounds, as he seemed to want to avoid getting hit with Beranza’s occasional bombs, which by this point, were already beginning to swell up Escalante’s face around the eyes and nose. Esclante continued having little problem landing against Beranza, but he was beginning to slow down with his shots due to his foot movement.
In the 6th round, Beranza landed several hard right hands, which got Escalante’s attention, making him move side to side to prevent getting nailed. Beranza then began landing jabs against a a moving Escalante, picking him off on the outside.
Escalante had better rounds in the 7th and 8th rounds, as he started throwing double left hooks to the body and head of Beranza. Escalante almost forgo using his right hand, which was essentially useless to him, focusing entirely on throwing nothing but left hooks.
By the 9th round, Eslante’s face was beginning to swell up badly around both eyes. He had a bad cut over his right eye, and his nose appeared to be likely broken. His cornerman did the best he could to try and decrease the swelling. As in the early rounds, Escalante dominated the round, hitting Beranza with some big right hands. On one occasion in the round, a big right hand from Escalante knocked Beranza across the ring, as if he were hit with a sledgehammer.
In the 10th round, Esclante basically took the round off, letting Beranza control the action. Beranza, disparate by this point for a knockout, tried in vain to knock Escalante out, throwing big right hand bombs, some connecting, many missing badly. The ones that did land, however, made an even more of a mess of Escalante’s brittle face than before. Indeed, he looked terrible by the time the fight ended in the 10th, and he was incredibly lucky that this fight wasn’t a 12-round bout, for he might have lost the bout on cuts if it had gone on a little longer.