By Eric Thomas: In a night of bad decisions, the house fighter welterweight contender Jesus Soto Karass (21-5-1, 13 KOs) won a narrow 10-round decision over journeyman Chris Smith (20-3-3, 14 KOs) to hold onto his WBC Continental Americas welterweight title on Friday night at the Tropicana Hotel & Casino, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It had been three months since I’d last seen Soto-Karass fight and had forgotten how awful he looks as a fighter, other than to remember how slow he was as a puncher and how fortunate he was to have beaten Germaine Sanders, who I thought won the fight by at least two rounds. Unfortunately, nothing had chanced since then; Soto-Karass still looked god-awful slow in terms of hand speed, and his workrate was still just as bad as it was last time out when I saw him fight in January. Like last time out, Soto-Kass, 25, appeared to lose most of the early rounds of the fight, as Smith, 33, easily outworked him while fighting a home for his straight right hand.
Soto-Karass had no defense for Smith’s right hand, and was hit over and over again without making any adjustments in order to try and avoid getting hit with the shot. It was like target practice for Smith, who never seemed to miss in the first four rounds of the fight. I figured that Soto-Karass, ranked #11 in the WBO welterweight division, would eventually figure out a way to compensate for all the right hands he was absorbing, perhaps by moving a bit more, but no, he continued to take punishing shots without covering up.
In his past fights, Soto-Karass had looked like a decent inside fighter, throwing hooks to the body and head. Strangely enough, however, it was Smith, who usually fightings on the outside, who was the much better fighter on the inside. Indeed, Smith kept the slow-punching Soto-Karass pinned to the ropes for much of the right, taking right hands to the head at close range.
With his right hand shots leading the way, Smith easily won the first five rounds of the fight as he bombarded Soto-Karass with a steady incoming fire. Instead of using his youth and movement to try and outwork the older Smith, Soto-Karass, 25, allowed the fight to take place at close quarters, where he was much less comfortable than Smith, who landed short right hands to the head of Soto-Karass.
In the sixth round, there wasn’t much clean scoring by either fighter as they traded mostly weak shots on the inside. Smith appeared to be pushing his shots in order to land a high volume of shots, and was tiring himself out in the process. Soto-Karass appeared to land just enough to win the round by a close margin, but it was far from being conclusive,
Smith came back strong in the 7th round, nailing Soto-Karass with big right hands to the head and looking as fresh as he did in the first round. All of the action was done by Smith, however, as Soto-Karass was finding it hard to land effectively against Smith, who was nailing him often.
In the 8th round, Smith continued to outwork Soto-Karass by a wide margin, hitting him four times as much in the round and getting hit with only a few weak hooks from the slow-punching Soto-Karass. By this time, Smith was well ahead in the fight and Soto-Karass needed a knockout to win the fight on my scorecards.
In the 9th and 10th rounds, Karass came back to edge both rounds by a close margin largely due to his left hooks that he landed in the rounds. It was close, however, but I think he did enough to win the rounds.
All in all, it was a poor performance from Soto-Karass, who appeared to get another gift decision. He’s going to have to get a lot better in a hurry if he plans on moving up the ranks and challenging for a title someday.