By Jim Dower: Middleweight project James McGirt Jr. (19-2-1, 9 KOs) suffered another setback in his developing pro career, losing a 10-round unanimous decision to the tough journeyman Angel Hernandez (29-7, 16 KOs) on Friday night at the Mallory Square, in Key West, Florida. The final judges’ scores were 96-94, 96-94 and 96-95. McGirt Jr. and his trainer/father, both seemed unhappy with the final results afterwards.
The scores, however, seemed fair, because the fight was very close and Hernandez, 33, had imposed his will on McGirt Jr., forcing him to fight on the inside where Hernandez did the superior work. In hindsight, the choice of Hernandez as an opponent might not have been a wise choice for the green McGirt Jr., who probably needs much less experienced fighters than him to hone his craft against. McGirt Jr. never seemed comfortable in the fight, having the short 5’8″ Hernandez bull rush him throughout the fight and force him back against the ropes where Hernandez would pound him to the body.
As the fight wore on, McGirt began less effective in moving off the ropes, and began to lean forward from having been hit with some many body shots in the fight. This allowed Hernandez, a smart fighter with tons of experience against accomplished opponents like Winky Wright, Raymond Joval and Vanes Martirosyan, to nail him with uppercuts to the head.
McGirt, with his tall, 6’1” height, should have been able to easily control the fight from the outside. However, he for whatever reason didn’t choose to stay there for any length of time, instead letting Hernandez fight him in close. When he wanted to, McGirt was able to move well on the outside and easily get out of the way of Hernandez’s bull-like attacks, but the effort to move a lot seemed to take energy from McGirt, making it necessary for him to stop and exchange punches with Hernandez.
Hernandez continued doing a good job of getting inside on McGirt in the 2nd round, landing right hands to the head at close range. McGirt fought reasonably well in close, but with his long arms, he was at a tremendous disadvantage against the shorter Hernandez and unable to match him in terms of power.
McGirt got some distance in the 3rd round, staying on the outside for most of the round and nailing Hernandez with right hands and lefts to the body. On the outside, McGirt was able to easily control the round and it’s a wonder why he didn’t try a little harder to stay on the outside where he could fight on his own terms.
In rounds four through six, Hernandez continued to pressure McGirt and fighting him on the inside, roughing him up and hitting him often.
Hernandez smothered McGirt’s punches, and out-landed him by a significant margin. However, Hernandez looked sloppy much of the time, missing often and throwing punches with poor technique. It didn’t matter, though. McGirt was nearly helpless when Hernandez had him backed against the ropes.
In the 5th round, Hernandez landed a lot of good right hands and had McGirt’s nose bleeding from two big right hands.
Hernandez was cut over the left in the 7th round after getting hit with some fast shots from McGirt on the inside. This seemed to cause Hernandez to back off somewhat in the round, letting McGirt win a round for a change.
In rounds eight through ten, Hernandez once again went back to his smothering tendencies, keeping McGirt pinned up against the ropes and battering him for the final three rounds of the fight. McGirt tried to fight back, but Hernandez was much too tough for him and kept nailing him with big shots, puffing up McGirt’s right eye.
All in all, McGirt deserved to lose the fight.
He didn’t do what he needed to do, making a huge mistake of letting Hernandez, the shorter fighter, fight him on the inside rather than the outside. This is now McGirt’s third poor performance in his last four bouts. In his last four fights, he’s lost twice, one once and fought to a draw.
I think he needs to make some decisions about his career, because a fighter like Hernandez is someone that McGirt Jr. should have been able to easily beat if he was a serious contender. And though he’s still young enough to improve, I have my doubts that he’ll be able to enough to be a serious contender.
In other action on the card, unbeaten middleweight prospect Marcus Willis (2-0-1, 1 KOs) defeated Omar Brown (1-2, 1 KOs) by a four-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 40-35, 40-35 and 40-35. Willis, 22, knocked Brown down in the 2nd round with a left hook to the side of the head. However, for the remainder of the bout there were few other fireworks, as Willis took advantage of his faster hand speed to easily defeat Brown.
Only 5’8”, Brown was forced to come charging in when he wanted to land against the 6’0” Willis. However, instead of using a jab like most fighters, Brown mostly came lunging in trying to land wild shots from the outside. Willis was easily able to get out of the way of Brown’s wild swings most of the time. Neither fighter was impressive, however. Willis looked like a watered down version of Andre Berto, without his high work rate, accuracy and boxing skills.