By Jim Dower: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Erislandy Lara (6-0, 4 KOs) defeated 37-year-old journeyman Edwin Vazquez (22-14-2) by a 4th round knockout tonight at the Fontainbleau Hotel, in Miami Beach, Florida. Lara, 26, a former Cuban amateur star who defected, opened up with a storm of shots in the 4th to cause the referee to step in and halt the bout.
Vazquez was down once in the bout in the 2nd round from a long left hand from Lara. Lara controlled the entire fight, working Vazquez over with hooks to the body and uppercuts to the head in rounds one through three.
Vazquez answered back with jabs and hooks of his own and didn’t look all that bad considering his large amount of defeats on his record. However, Lara kept on him and hurt Vazquez with body shots. In the 4th round, Lara went all out firing big hooks to the head as Vazquez tried to cover up. Referee Telis Assimenios then stepped in and halted the bout at 1:13 of the 4th. Lara was too big, and much too fast for the limited Vazquez, who came into this fight having lost his last four bouts.
Hard hitting welterweight prospect Ed Parades (22-3, 13 KOs) defeated Gilbert Venegas (10-7-3, 7 KOs) by a six round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 58-55, 58-55 and 57-56.
Smith Defeats Gutierrez
In somewhat of an upset, welterweight prospect Antwone Smith (16-1-1, 8 KOs) defeated Colombian Richard Gutierrez (24-3-1, 14 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision tonight at the Fontaine bleau Resort, in Miami Beach, Florida. The final judges’ scores were 97-93, 96-94 and 100-88.
Gutierrez got off to a good start landing sharp combinations in the first three rounds. However, he quickly faded as Smith took over with his bigger shots and better work rate. Gutierrez, 30, simply got outworked in this fight by Smith and didn’t have the work rate to compete with the younger 22-year-old Smith.
Gutierrez looked as if he was partially weight drained after coming down from light middleweight where he’s been fighting for the past two years.
The smaller weight seemed to have done nothing for Gutierrez’s power while also not improving his work rate either. Gutierrez looked wild in the 1st round, throwing big hoops and missing badly. The misses often put Gutierrez off balance as he would twist completely around some of the times, leaving him open for counters from Smith.
For his part, Smith, focused on volume punching in the round. Smith is mostly an arm puncher, although he can land an occasional big shot from time to time when he sites down on his punches. Smith stayed in close to Gutierrez in the opening round, landing short punches and smothering Gutierrez.
With the experience that Gutierrez had, you would think that he would have had the presence of mind to step back and get some space to throw his shots. However, he was content to try and beat Smith at close range by throwing short hooks to the body and uppercuts.
It wasn’t working out well for him, though, because Smith nailed him repeatedly during the round. In rounds two through four, Smith continued to crowd Gutierrez and hammer him with short punches over and over again.
There was no way that Gutierrez could match Smith’s high punch output, yet he continued to try without any success.
What Gutierrez needed to do was load up on his shots and try for a knockout, because that was really his only chance at beating Smith. He couldn’t beat him by a decision with the way that Smith was firing punch after punch. In the 4th round, Smith was cut above his left eye.
He continued to smother Gutierrez’s punches effectively, robbing him of his power. In the closing seconds of the round, Smith trapped Gutierrez against the ropes and landed a flurry of shots. In rounds five through eight, Smith continued to have great success landing arm punches and staying on top of Gutierrez.
In the 8th, Smith’s cut over his left eye began to get worse, bleeding all over the place. In the 9th and 10th, Gutierrez, now hopelessly behind in the fight, attacked Smith with power shots knowing that he needed a knockout to win. However, Smith continued firing almost nonstop punches back at Gutierrez in both round and easily outworking him in both rounds. Smith’s cut bleed even worse in the 10th.
Overall, it was a good performance by Smith. He looked good in outworking Gutierrez. I can see Smith defeating quite a few of the top 10 welterweights by the way he fought last night. However, because of his lack of power, Smith likely won’t have much luck if he ever fights for a championship. He is a good gatekeeper type fighter though.