By Erik Schmidt: World Boxing Association light heavyweight champion Hugo Hernan Garay (32-3, 17 KOs) easily defeated German challenger Juergen Braehmer (31-2, 25 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Stadthalle, Rostock, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-112 and 116-115.
However, the scores, like often the case in Germany, seemed way out of touch with the actual fight as Garay appeared to easily win every round of the fight and I couldn’t see Braehmer winning any of them, even if I was being merciful to him.
Garay, 27, from Argentina, had way too much firepower for Braehmer, hitting him with short combinations and beating him in virtually every exchange in the long 12 round bout. There were no knockdowns in the fight, but Braehmer took a severe beating in every round and was never close to fighting competitive with Garay.
Indeed, Garay looked incredible, throwing hard combinations and tagging Braehmer at will in the fight. In the first round, hit Braehmer with a lot of single shots, mostly right hands which he would throw one after another during the round.
For his part, Braehmer could only throw a few punches of his own – a couple of combinations and a few meaningless jabs. But in the meantime, he was getting hit an awful lot by Garay and not looking good. In the second and third rounds, Garay continued hitting him with right hands and looking to be trying to stop him with one big punch.
Braehmer fought slightly better in the 3rd round, landing a couple of two-punch combinations but he was still getting badly outworked by Garay and not punching nearly as hard as him. For Braehmer, who only recently moved up from the super middleweight division where he’s fought his entire career, he didn’t appear to have the size and power to contend with the more powerful Garay, and looked like he didn’t belong in the same ring with him despite Braehmer’s high number #1 ranking in the WBA.
In the 4th and 5th rounds, Garay continued with his domination over Braehmer, hitting him with flurries now. Braehmer fought well in the 5th until late in the round when Garay suddenly opened up with a flurry of shots, nailing Braehmer with six punches to the head in the last seconds of the round.
In the 6th round, Garay was now throwing almost nothing but long, sustained flurries, standing in front of Braehmer and hitting him with machine gun-like shots to the head in rapid fire. Even if Braehmer wanted to try and land some punches, he didn’t have the chance because of the nonstop incoming fire that was being thrown at him by Garay.
In rounds seven and right, Garay shortened up his shots and began hitting Braehmer with fast one-two combinations one after another, staying close to him and focusing more on speed now rather than power. Braehmer was able to land more punches in these rounds but was still not even close to winning either of the rounds and continuing to get beat up badly.
In the 9th and 10th rounds, Garay stopped up the pace of his shots again, throwing a massive amount of punches and riddling Braehmer to pieces. Like the other rounds, Braehmer wasn’t competitive in the slightest and took a beating.
In the end, he was just way overmatched and didn’t have the skills to be in the same ring with Garay. I still can’t figure out how or why any of the judges’ could have given Braehmer any of the rounds because he got battered in every round of the fight.