By Adan Cortez: World Boxing Council super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (34-3-2, 14 KOs) successfully defended his super flyweight title on Saturday night with a 12-round slit decision over challenger Jose Navarro (26-4, 12 KOs) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ranked # 10 in the WBC super flyweight division, Navarro, 26, came into the fight having lost his last bout to Dimitri Kirilov, so it seemed odd that he would be the champion Mijares’ opponent for this bout.
However, Navarro proved to be a tough opponent, if only because his excellent stamina and heavy hands seemed to give Mijares some problems in the later rounds of the fight. The final judges’ scores were 115-113 – for Mijares, 108-120 for Navarro and 117-111 for Mijares. However, it appeared that the judge that ruled the fight for Navarro – Doug Tucker – may have been confused about which fighter he was scoring the fight for, since the fight wasn’t particularly close as most people, me included, saw Mijares winning the fight quite handily even with Mijares giving away some of the later rounds.
This was the third defense for Mijares, 26, who won the WBC super flyweight title with a dominating 12-round unanimous decision over previous champion Jorge Arce on April 14, 2007. Navarro, though game and tough, was no match for the technical skills of Mijrares. The first three rounds of the fight were easily controlled by Mijares, who used his jab, hooks and ability to get out of the way of punches to his advantage. Navarro had a tough time trying to land anything during these rounds, for when he would attempt a shot, Mijares would either lean away or move his torso by twisting to avoid the shot. In the meantime, Mijares would continually pour in jabs, left hands and hook against the confused Navarro.
In the fourth round, Navarro’s nose began to bleed from all the shots he’d been hit by from Mijares, staining the front of his trunks a bright red. The fight was still firmly in control by Mijares, who kept a steady diet of jabs coming Navarro’s way.
Navarro finally appeared to win a round in the sixth round as Mijares took the round off and did very little. Navarro took advantage of the lull in punching from Mijares to land a low number of left hands and right hooks. It wasn’t impressive, but at least Navarro had finally won a round, even it was pretty much given to him.
Mijares came back strong in the 7th round, once again dominating Navarro with jabs and hooks, and making it difficult for him to land much of anything of his own.
Navarro appeared to win the 8th round by outworking Mijares, who looked to be tiring a bit. However, as in the sixth, Mijares appeared to be costing, knowing perhaps that he had the fight well in control and wanting to take it easy.
In rounds nine through eleven, Mijares took back control of the fight, keeping a constant jab in the face of Navarro and hitting him often on the way in. At this stage of the fight, Navarro was fighting desperately trying to catch. This left him open for Mijares, who is excellent at taking advantage of wild fighters trying for a knockout. In the 11th round, Mijares opened up a big cut above the fight eye of Navarro after connecting with a couple of lefts and a right hand. The cut didn’t seem to effect Navarro, though it didn’t help him either. He clearly lost the 11th, as he did with rounds 9 and 10.
In the twelfth, Navarro gamely tried to score a knockout, throwing every punch as hard as he could. The problem, however, was that Navarro, not much of a puncher to begin with, had even less power by this time in the fight. As such, Mijares easily won the round without doing much other than landing jabs an occasional left hand.