By Manuel Perez: Undefeated featherweight prospect Jerry Belmontes (6-0, 1 KOs) defeated Jesus Hernandez (2-4, 2 KOs) by a four-round unanimous decision on the undercard of the WBA welterweight clash between Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley on Saturday night at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California. The final judges’ scores were 39-37, 39-37 and 40-36. Belmontes, 20, known as the “The Corpus Christi Kid,” controlled most of the bout with his jab and counter punching. Belmontes, 5’9″, literally towered over the 5’5″ Hernandez and used his height and reach to jab him safely from the outside.
However, despite being over-matched, Hernandez kept coming forward and in the 4th round, he had Belmontes looking uncomfortable as he chased him around the ring, landing right hands and body shots. Belmontes retreated and clinched his way out of the round, but it was a poor way to end the fight and seemed to take away from his victory.
Belmontes jabbed often in the 1st round, picking off Hernandez as he came forward and landing nice combinations. Belmontes had no real power to speak of, which was a problem for him because he was unable to drive Hernandez off with anything significant. Hernandez, for his part, looked awkward, missing much of the time when he attempted to land and leaning forward as if he was about to topple over.
Hernandez had little hand speed nor much power of his own. However, he was still able to back Belmontes up against the ropes on a number of occasions in the round and tag him to the body with combinations.
In the 2nd round, Belmontes landed well with double hooks to the head and fought well moving backwards and laterally. He continued being pressured by Hernandez like in the 1st, but did a reasonable job of handling Hernandez’s incoming.
Both fighters looked sloppy at times, throwing punches while out of position and not getting much power in the shots. Hernandez looked good at one point in the round, ducking under two right hands from Belmontes. At the end of the round, Belmontes threw a nice three punch combination that landed to the head of Hernandez.
Hernandez was hit often in the 3rd round, picked off by punches as he came steaming forward trying to land his right hand. Much of the time, he walked straight into the punches, but it wasn’t as bad as it might seem due to Belmonte’s nonexistent power. In the last minute of the round, Hernandez found Belmontes more and more, hitting him with a lot of right hands to the head. It was nearly enough for Hernandez to win the round but not quite.
In the 4th, Belmontes was in full flight and running all around the ring to prevent Hernandez from pinning him down. It only partially worked, though, because Hernandez was desperate at this point and fighting with ferocious intensity. Again and again, he cut off the ring on Belmontes and landed with right hands to the head.
Belmontes tried clinching often, but Hernandez was able to wrestle out of the clinches and continue fighting. Hernandez ended up landing a massive amount of right hands in the round and had Belmontes looking plenty worried by the end of the fight. Had the fight gone another six rounds, I would have put my money on Hernandez of being too much for Belmontes and winning a decision.