By Aaron Klein: Undefeated junior middleweight prospect Jason Lehoullier (21-0-1, 8 KOs) fought to a 10-round draw with Jose Gonzalez (11-2-1, 9 KOs) on Friday night at the Foxwoods Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut. The bout seemed far from a draw, though, as Gonzalez, 26, took over the fight starting in the 3rd round and easily appeared to win the remaining rounds of the fight. However, the bout was in Lehoullier’s home town, meaning that Gonzalez would have probably had to do something dramatic, say, score a knock down or two to get a decision win. As it is, Gonzalez appeared to have won the fight eight rounds to two. The final judges’ scores were 93-97 for Gonzalez, 95-95 and 96-94 for Lehoullier.
In rounds one and two, Lehoullier looked sharp as he threw hard left hooks to the head of Gonzalez. It seemed almost inevitable at that stage that Lehoullier, 30, would either get a knockout or win by decision. Gonzalez, a tall fighter that oddly likes to fight on the inside, seemed stiff and robotic during this stage in the fight. He was an easy target for many of Lehoullier’s shots because of his tendency to stand directly in front of him, showing little head movement or ability to block punches.
In the 3rd round, Lehoullier began to redden around his right eye from all the right hands he was eating from Gonzalez. At the same time, Lehoullier started to become predictable in his attacks, which would generally include a couple of punches followed immediately by a clinch. Gonzalez figured this out early and would time Lehoullier as he was coming in for one of his typical wrestling clinches, punching him several times while he was on his way in.
Lehoullier began to show swelling under both eyes beginning in the fourth round. He was still attacking, but they were becoming more infrequent by this time. Gonzalez, for his part, was walking Lehoullier down, hitting him with hard combinations upon corning him. In the remaining rounds of the fight, Gonzalez was much more busier with his activity, as he took the fight to the exhausted Lehoullier. In the end, it was difficult for me to see Lehoullier winning any of the rounds after the 2nd, for he was absorbing constant punishment from Gonzalez. Overall, a really bad decision on the judges’ part.
There’s no way that Gonzalez lost this fight. That’s not to say that Gonzalez looked like a champion, because he certainly didn’t. He has a lot of work to do if he ever wants to be even a contender. However, he good enough to beat Lehoullier on Friday night.