By Erik Schmidt: Cruiserweight contender Enad Licina (16-1, 10 KOs) stopped Colombian knockout artist Jose Luis Herrera (16-5, 16 KOs) in the 8th round of a scheduled 12-round bout on Saturday night to retain his IBF Inter-Continental cruiserweight title at the Erdgas Arena, Riesa, in Sachsen, Germany. Licina, 29, knocked Herrera down in the 8th round with a big right hand to the head. Moments before, Licina had staggered Herrera, 29, with another huge right hand shot.
After the knockdown, Herrera got to his feet but staggered backwards and collapsed backwards as the referee motioned for him to walk towards him. Despite Herrera looking totally out on his feet, the referee allowed the fight to continue. Licina then attacked Herrera, driving him back to the ropes with three right hands. Once having him trapped on the ropes, Licina landed two right hands to the head and further hurt Herrera. Referee Howard John Foster then stepped in and halted the fight at 2:14 of the 8th round.
Licina, ranked #13 in the IBF cruiserweight division, was knocked down near the end of the 1st round after getting hit with a big right hand from Herrera that landed high on his forehead. Licina had appeared to hurt Herrera seconds before with a long right hand and had backed him into the corner.
However, Licina left himself open as he came forward and was hit with a huge shot from Herrera. After Licina went down, he collapsed forward into the ropes as he was trying to get up. He eventually staggered to his feet, and was able to escape getting hurt for the remainder of the round because there was only a short amount of time left in the round.
In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Licina came back behind his powerful right hands, and landed often with hard right hands that he threw from long range. However, Herrera continued to land big combinations and testing Licina’s chin often. Herrera’s power was quite good and it wasn’t surprising that he had knocked out cruiserweight prospect Aaron Williams in the 5th round in his last bout in May.
Herrera punched with a lot of power and a fighter with a less sturdy chin as Licina, perhaps most cruiserweights, would have been taken out with the kind of shots that Herrera was landing.
Herrera came on in the 4th round, landing a massive amount of powerful right hands in the round. However, Licina didn’t back down for an instant and fired back with powerful right hands of his own to try and answer each shot from Herrera. Licina showed good power in his own right, but not quite to the level of Herrera, who was firing off huge shots throughout the round.
In the 5th round, Herrera fought well for most of the time but in the last 30 seconds of the round, Licina seemed to hurt him with a big right hand to the head. Licina then landed a blizzard of shots as the round came to a close.
Herrera stormed back in the 6th, tagging Licina with constant right hands and giving him a lot of trouble with his power. Like in the last round, Licina landed a flurry of shots in the last seconds of the round to try and steal it. However, Herrera had done more than enough to win the round with his much better work in the first two minutes of the round.
In the 7th, Herrera’s punch output dropped off significantly as he stood around and let Licina do most of the work. With Herrera doing little, Licina was content to jab for the entire round, landing one jab after another. Near the end of the round, Herrera was warned by the referee after landing a right hand low. Aside from that, he landed only several right hands during the entire round and just took shots.
In the 8th round, Herrera fought well in the early going land some nice right hands to the head and body. However, Licina immediately began firing back big right hands of his own and shortly thereafter he landed a big right to the jaw of Herrera that staggered him. Licina immediately fired back with another fight hand that put Herrera down as he stood with his back to the ropes.
Herrera immediately got to his feet but fell backwards as the referee was asking him to come to him. Once the action resumed, Licina finished him off with five consecutive right hands to the head, ending when referee Howard John Foster stopped the bout at 2:14 of the round.
Licina has now accumulated 13 consecutive victories since losing a six-round decision in his 4th pro fight to future top contender Aleksy Kuziemski in 2005.