By Jim Slattengren: In another unimpressive performance, welterweight contender Richard Gutierrez (24-1, 14 KOs) won a dull 10-round unanimous decision over Nicaraguan Jose Varela (23-3, 16 KOs) on Friday night at the Xtreme Indoor Karting, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The final judges’ scores were 99-91, 98-92 and 98-92 for the 29 year-old Gutierrez. The fight seemed to drag in the later rounds, when Gutierrez, ranked #10 in the International Boxing Federation welterweight division, faded badly turning the fight into a mauling, jab-fest.
However, Gutierrez did enough work to get the win, but it was hardly impressive. This was the second consecutive disappointing performance for Gutierrez, who before losing to Joshua Clottey in July 2006, was one of the top welterweight prospects in the division. However, Gutierrez hasn’t looked the same in his last two bouts, starting with his sluggish performance against Lucian Perez, whom he defeated by a boring 10-round unanimous decision in June 2007. Gutierrez’s fight with Varela on Friday night was supposed to make up for that off night – it didn’t.
To start off with, Gutierrez came in over the 147 lbs welterweight limit, so the fight was fought at junior middleweight (153 lbs). Perhaps it was the added weight or maybe Varela’s awkward style. Whatever the case, Gutierrez’s work rate was unimpressive as he landed few significant punches in the bout. Some of the problem was no doubt due to Varela’s size. At 6’1,” he looked much bigger than the 5’10” Gutierrez.
However, Varela hardly seemed to use his height to his advantage in the bout, for his jab was remarkably slow, and quite weak, as was his other punches. It wasn’t as if Gutierrez had to avoid getting hit while on the way in because none of Varela’s punches seemed to have any power what so ever. Most of the first two rounds were fought almost in slow motion with both fighters taking turns throwing lethargic-looking shots.
I doubt know what the problem was for Gutierrez, because I’ve seen him look much better in other bouts, especially his fight with Clottey. Maybe he was fighting down to his opponent or something. Whatever the case, Gutierrez didn’t look good until he was hit with a low blow in the 3rd round, the punch causing Gutierrez to sink to the canvas in agony. After he took a minute recovering from the shot, Gutierrez came out like a raging bull as he unloaded with fierce-looking hooks to the head and midsection of Varela.
Gutierrez kept up this strong pace through the 4th round, landing well with right hands to the head. However, none of his shots seemed to have much of an effect on Varela, whom has a good chin. Previously, Varela went 12 rounds with the knockout artist Edison Miranda in June 2005, whom I’d rate as a much harder puncher than Gutierrez.
Starting in the 6th round, Gutierrez began to tire visibly as he no longer seemed to have as much power on his shots. His pace also slowed, even worse than it was in the first three rounds of the fight. Varela, however, was hardly in the position to take advantage at this point, though he tried.
Gutierrez controlled the action in the 7th round, every once in awhile loading up with a big shot. In between that, there was mostly weak jabs and pawing with their gloves.
In the 8th and 9th rounds, Varela took control of the bout landing frequently with soft jabs and weak left and right hands. Though his punches had zero power, Varela won the rounds because Gutierrez was fighting very economically as he tried to conserve his precious energy.
In the 10th round, Gutierrez came on strong to win the round, especially after getting an extra time out to get his gloves re-taped. It was enough for him to gather enough of his diminishing stamina to pull out the round.