Chavez Decisions Jimenez

By Boxing News - 04/05/2008 - Comments

chavez554.jpgBy Manuel Perez: Former lightweight/super featherweight champion Jesus Chavez (43-4, 29 KOs) struggled in beating Puerto Rican Daniel Jimenez (17-3, 10 Kos) by a hard fought 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Chavez, now 35, was making his first appearance in 13 months and only his third fight in almost three years. Chavez, wearing a knee brace on his badly damaged right knee, looked old and slow for most of the fight, missing punches and getting outworked by the younger 27 year-old Jimenez.

Though the final judges’ scores scored the fight in Chavez’s favor by a 97-93, 96-94 and 96-94, it was more of an even fight. I had it scored a draw and if anything, Jimenez appeared to be the better overall fighter. It wasn’t a good sign for Chavez, who if he still hopes to challenge for a title in the future, he’s going to need to improve a lot more over this performance. Jimenez, though a good fighter, isn’t a even a ranked contender, yet he looked like a champion next to Chavez, and easily made him look old and ragged in contrast.

Jimenez controlled the action in the first two rounds, using movement and a fast jab to spear the slower Chavez. For his part, Chavez had problems landing shots in both rounds as his punches, looking very slow, missed badly whenever he attempted to land. He then compensated by trying to go to the body, but he landed several low blows, and was warned by the referee to keep them up. This had the effect of making Chavez a head hunter, which he did poorly at due to his slowed reflexes and timing.

In the third round, Chavez began to stalk Jimenez and put heavy pressure on him. It looked like the old Chavez, except a little slower and weaker. His bad knee would account for his lack of power in that Chavez can no longer get leverage on his shots like he used to because of his bad knee. It has the effect of making him fight tall and without as much power as before. Still, he had more than enough power on his shots to win the third round quite easily.

In the 4th round, Jimenez began to move more around the ring, throwing jabs and quick flurries at Chavez. The movement appeared to give Chavez a lot of problems for his knee problem kept him from cutting off the ring like he used to be able to do earlier in his career.

Chavez’s heavy hands began to show their effects on Jimenez’s face in the 5th round, with both cheeks beginning to swell up from the pounding Chavez was giving him in the round. Jimenez looked really bothered by Chavez’s shots and kept moving as much as possible to avoid being hit.

Chavez looked really good in the 6th, taking the fight to Jimenez and pounding him with hard shots to the head and body. Jimenez seemed to want no part of Chavez during this round and kept on his bike for the most part during the round.
In the 7th round, it was Chavez who appeared to be slowing down, his punch output dropping off dramatically, His power seemed to vanish as well as he mostly pushed his punches. He was still capable of landing an occasional hard shot, but mostly he was chasing after Jimenez and landing weak shots, ones with little form.

Chavez began to change up in style in the 8th round, switching from orthodox to southpaw in an attempt to befuddle Jimenez. It seemed to work, though Jimenez perhaps was more bothered by the hard shots that Chavez was throwing than the change of fighting stance.

In the 9th round, Jimenez came back with a strong round, hitting Chavez with numerous uppercuts to the head. Chavez often walked straight into the punches in his eagerness to land his own shots. It was Jimenez, however, who was landing by far the harder and faster punches in the round, and easily won the round on my card.

In the 10th round, badly in need of a round in order to salvage the win, Chavez took the fight to Jimenez and landed a high number of head shots. Jimenez, for his part, did little until the final 3o seconds of the fight when he suddenly opened up with a flurry of punches and landed well. However, by then, I had Chavez easily winning the round.