By Jim Dower: Undefeated middleweight prospect Craig McEwan (15-0, 9 KOs) outpointed former contest in the reality television series The Contender Brian Vera (16-3, 10 KOs) tonight by a 10-round unanimous decision at the Sunset Square, in Fort Worth, Texas. The final judges’ scores were 97-93, 97-93 and 97-93, all for McEwan.
Vera had his moments, landing huge right hands from times to time. However, Vera seemed to run out of gas in the 2nd half of the fight which saw his punch output drop off dramatically down the stretch. The same applied to McEwan, but he was able to use his legs and jab to avoid taking punishment and losing rounds. He wasn’t impressive, though.
McEwan put in a good workmanlike performance, throwing a lot of jabs and combinations. He didn’t look all that impressive in terms of hand speed or power, but he showed a good chin in taking Vera’s big right hands without getting hurt like middleweight prospect Andy Lee was against Vera.
Although 6’1”, McEwan’s arm length is short for his height at only 75”, and he was forced to fight closer to Vera than he would have liked.
McEwan, 27, who’s trained by Freddie Roach, built up an early lead in rounds one through six using movement and counter punching, tired out in the last four rounds and had to rely on his defense to get the victory. McEwan showed little power to speak of and used pin point punching to win the rounds.
McEwan, a southpaw, periodically switched from southpaw to orthodox to try and throw Vera off. It didn’t have much effect on Vera, who occasionally landed some huge right hands to the head of McEwan. In the 7th round, Vera landed a number of big right hands catching McEwan often.
In the same round, Vera was cut on the side of his left eye. McEwan made the mistake of trying to slug with Vera in the round was hit with some major shots for his efforts. However, McEwan showed an excellent chin, if not power and took Vera’s shots without getting hurt like Andy Lee had been last year in his fight with Vera.
Vera continued to fight well in the 8th round, landing big looping right hands to the head. McEwan continued bouncing and moving, trying to get away from Vera. However, Vera pressed forward like a Billy goat with his head down and forcing McEwan to exchange shots at close range.
In the 9th and 10th rounds, McEwan moved often, firing short shots as Vera desperately came at him trying for a knockout.
I can’t say I was all that impressed with McEwan. He got the win, but showed no power, hand speed or the ability to block punches. McEwan mostly won because of his movement, which should allow him to beat some of the super middleweight contenders but not the better fighters like Kelly Pavlik, Peter Quillen, Arthur Abraham, Felix Sturm, Winky Wright, Gennady Golovkin and Sebastian Zbik.
Unless Roach is interested in training a gatekeeper, he might want to consider moving McEwan down in weight to light middleweight where McEwan might stand a better chance of winning a belt. I wouldn’t advise moving him up because the super middleweight division is too go for a fighter like McEwan in my estimation.
In other action, unbeaten welterweight prospect Charles Hatley (3-0, 3 KOs) destroyed Carlos Garcia (3-4-1, 3 KOs) in a 1st round knockout. Hatley dropped Hatley two times in the fight before the bout was stopped a minute into the round.
Undefeated lightweight prospect Adrien Broner (9-0, 6 KOs) defeated Fernando Quintero (7-1-1) by an eight round majority decision. The final judges’ scores were 76-76, 77-75 and 78-74.