By Chris Williams: In a disappointing performance, Argentinean knockout artist Luis Carlos Abregu (25-0, 21 KOs) struggled in defeating David Estrada (22-6, 13 KOs) by a 10-round split decision on Friday at the Chumash Casino, in Santa Ynez, California. After controlling the first seven rounds mostly due to Estrada fighting cautiously, Abregu, ranked #7 in the World Boxing Council, faded badly, tiring out and spending the last three rounds running continuously and looking timid and afraid.
It was a fight that Abregu, a much hyped knockout fighter, was supposed to win in an impressive manner, yet it was Estrada who looked like the better fighter by the end of the fight. Unfortunately for Estrada, he showed far too much respect for Abregu in the first seven rounds in which he fought cautiously against the Argentinean fighter.
By the time that Estrada started opening up with his own offense in the 8th, he needed a knockout to win the fight. It’s too bad that Estrada started so late with his own attack, because the fight was a very winnable one if he had fought in his old 2005 fighting form, when he would attack his opponents fiercely from the opening bell, making them fight hard and have to deal with his heavy attacks.
However, with losses to Shane Mosley, Kermit Cintron, Andre Berto and most recently to Jesus Soto Karass, Estrada seemed to have scaled back his once formidable offensive attack and played it safe against Abregu until the last three rounds of the fight on Friday night. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 98-91 and 94-96.
Fighting out of a crouch, Abregu stalked Estrada around the ring, looking to land big shots as the crowd booed almost continuously with the dull action. It wasn’t Abregu’s fault, because he seemed to want nothing better than to slug it out with Estrada.
In the second and third rounds, it was all Abregu with him landing heavy shots against the constantly moving Estrada. In terms of power, Abregu turned out to be only a moderately hard puncher and not the knockout artist that his record would indicate.
Then again, the vast majority of Abregu’s knockout wins have come in Argentine against fighters with not much experience. In fact, up until his fight with Estrada, arguably Abregu’s best opponent of his career was journeyman Thomas Davis, who has a record of 12-7. Given that, it appears that Estrada made a huge mistake in giving Abregu so much respect in the first half of the fight because if he had fought hard during this time, Estrada would have likely won many of the rounds and possibly may have stopped Abregu.
After losing the first three rounds by a wide margin, Estrada fought hard in the first minute of the 4th, landing some hard shots. However, he quickly turned down his offense and allowed Abregu to once again control the remainder of the round. In the 5th round, Estrada cut Abregu over his left eye with a big right hand.
Seeing his own blood, seemed to cause Abregu to fight much more cautiously than he did before, but he still was able to easily control the action due to Estrada’s poor work rate. In rounds six and seven, Abregu continued to control the fight, but you could see that Estrada was starting to get more and more confident, no doubt realizing that he had nothing to fear from Abregu.
Finally, in the 8th round, Estrada begin to fight as he normally does, going all out and throwing big shots. Seeing the change in Estrada, Abregu began to run around the ring, fleeing from him and trying to avoid getting hit.
It looked bad, I got to say. Estrada had the knockout artist on the run and essentially kept him running until the end of the fight in the 10th. Like I said, it’s too bad that Estrada waited too long to come on because he would have easily have won the fight if he had started a little earlier. It’s too bad that these two can’t fight again, because I see Estrada beating him in a rematch. I doubt that Abregu would want to fight him again, though.