By Manuel Perez: Bantamweight contender Nestor Rocha (19-1, 6 KOs) won a 10-round unanimous decision over the always tough Jose Angel Beranza (30-13-2, 25 KOs) on Friday night at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Rocha, 25, looked good in the early rounds, landing well to the body and keeping Beranza, 32, backing up with heavy pressure.
However, it was Beranza who came on in rounds six through eight, giving the light-hitting Rocha a lot of problems with his heavy pressure. Rocha came back to win rounds nine and ten closely, in large part due to his good body work. The final judges’ scores were 99-91, 100-90 and 97-93. Clearly, some of the judges seemed to be watching an altogether different fight, because there was no way that Rocha could have won rounds six, seven and eight, for he was taking heavy shots throughout and forced to back up continuously by the journeyman Beranza.
On paper, this was a fight that Rocha, a good prospect, should have won quite easily without much trouble at all due to his vastly superior boxing skills. Someone should have told Beranza that, because he seemed not to go a long with the plans as he badly lumped up Rocha and kept him under constant duress for the entire fight. Even in the rounds that Rocha clearly won – 1-5 and 9-10 – Beranza gave him big problems due to his power, forward movement and volume punching.
At first glance, Rocha looked considerably smaller than. at least in terms of bulk and musculature. I doubt it would fully explains why Rocha had problems with Beranza, though, because it seemed more of a case of Rocha just not knowing how to handle a good pressure fighter like Beranza, even though he’s not considered even close to being an A-class fighter.
Rocha looked good in rounds one and two, throwing beautiful combinations to the body, and mixing up shots upstairs. Beranza, who had lost his last three fights coming into Friday’s fight, couldn’t match Rocha with speed or his body shots. He seemed content, however, to get in his slower shots, aiming mostly for the head in an effort, I suppose, to score a surprise knockout. Only 32, Beranza looked much older than that, perhaps as old as 38.
Rocha did well in the first half of the 3rd round, but seemed to let off in the second part, this allowing Beranza to hit him with some powerful combinations to the head. He continued landing well until the end of the round, making it close. One thing you got to say about Beranza, he may have a lot of losses on his record, but he can still punch well. It’s too bad he wasn’t blessed with better hand speed or defense, because I could see him easily beating Rocha under those circumstances. As it is, he was at a big handicap.
In rounds four and five, Rocha went back to his body clinic, throwing sharp hooks to the body while somehow avoiding getting nailed by Beranza’s big shots. Beranza was mostly effective when fighting at a distance, which allowed him to get maximum extension on his power shots. However, when Rocha was in close, throwing his usual body shots, this had the effect of smothering a lot of Beranza’s power, as he wasn’t able to put as much on his shots because of the close quarter action. What he needed, in that case, was a good uppercut to even the score and keep Rocha honest. He didn’t have one, though, and Rocha was allowed to hit him with his pesky body shots, most of which were thrown with little on them.
Beranza looked like a different fighter in rounds six through eight, fighting very hard, keeping constant punches shooting out at Rocha, and backing him up against the ropes on a constant basis. I had expected Rocha to have enough presence of mind to know that he couldn’t fight off the ropes against a power puncher like Beranza without paying a price, yet that’s what Rocha allowed himself to do during these rounds. As a result, he appeared to lose all of them, taking some good punishment along the way, as evidenced by the swelling under both his right and left eyes.
It seems as if Rocha’s corner finally talked some sense into him before he came out for the 9th round, as he once again started up his body attack, and stayed close to Beranza during the both the 9th and 10th rounds. He still allowed himself to be driven to the ropes over and over by Beranza, but in this case, he quickly got off the ropes before taking too much punishment.
Afterwards, Rocha looked really disappointed in his performance, wearing a frown as if he had lost the fight instead of winning it by the lopsided scores that two of the judges had given him. I imagine that Rocha must have known how badly he fought, probably thinking that this fight was going to be easy. It wasn’t. Based on this fight, I wouldn’t give Rocha too much of a chance in his next fight against World Boxing Organization bantamweight champion Gerry Penalosa, whom he fights on August 1st.
Without any power, Rocha won’t have any way of keeping a big power puncher like Penalosa from eating him alive and knocking him out inside the distance. Believe me, trying to smother Penalosa’s punches by fighting on the inside won’t work, because Penalosa is an even better – far better, I’d say – body puncher than Rocha.