By Dave Lahr: Unbeaten welterweight contender Antonin Decarie (22-0, 6 KOs) defeated Argentinean Victor Hugo Castro (29-6, 12 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday to successfully defend his WBO NABO welterweight title at the Montreal Casino, in Montreal, Canada.
The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 120-108 and 120-108. For a fighter as ranked as highly as Decarie, it seemed strange that he was facing a journeyman rather than a top ranked righter at his stage in his career. Decarie needs to be in with better fighters than this if he wants to improve enough to compete with WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto.
Decarie, 26, looked very impressive in the fight, throwing a lot of flurries and overwhelming the 33-year-old Castro with constant incoming punches in the fight. Castro kept coming forward much of the time but didn’t have the offensive tools to make the fight competitive. There were no knockdowns in the bout due in part to Decarie’s lack of power. However, Castro may have wished that he was knocked out because he took an awful lot of punishment in the 12 round bout before it was through.
Decarie, ranked at number #2 in the World Boxing Organization welterweight division, worked Castro over with jabs and combinations in rounds on through four, pounding the Argentinean over and over again with combinations to the head and jabs. In both the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Castro ended up on the ropes a couple of times and got hit with sustained flurries from Decarie. Although Decarie isn’t much of a puncher, the flurries enabled him to land a lot of good head shots.
In rounds four through eight, Decarie continued with his one-sided beating of Castro, landing a lot of 1-2 combinations and jabs to the head. Castro had his moments in round six, landing some decent shots. However, he was unable to match the high work rate of Decarie.
In the 8th, stayed on the ropes at the end of the round and took a lot of shots as Decarie threw a flurry of punches, including one big right hand after the bell that seemed to stagger Castro. Before that, Castro was urging Decarie to throw more punches by motioning him in with gloves, but it looked like it didn’t work out the way that Castro wanted it to.
Decarie finished the last four rounds looking strong, winning the nine through twelfth by continuing to pressure Castro and hit him with weak combinations. Castro only threw a few shots in the last few rounds and mainly just took punishment.
Overall, it was a good win for Decarie but it failed to prove anything other than that he’s capable of beating journeyman fighters. Decarie will be destroyed once he steps it up against Cotto, and I see him ending up a lot like Michael Jennings, another weak puncher who was knocked out in the 5th. Decarie is a good fighter, but more of a local talent rather than what I consider a world class welterweight.
Also on the card, middleweight contender Sebastien Demers (28-2, 10 KOs) defeated Alfredo Contreras (10-5-1, 4 KOs) by an eight-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72. Demers, 29, ranked #7 in the International Boxing Federation middleweight division, was matched very soft for a fighter with as much experience as he has in the pro game.
It’s rare that a fighter that is ranked as high as Demers is put in against such a soft opponent and only for eight rounds. However, it did give the Canadian crowd an opportunity to see Demers win an easy fight, although Demers would have been better served if they had put him in with a live body.
Demers fought very well, landing to the head and the body with nice combinations in rounds one through four. Contreras stayed on the outside, landing occasional weak shots. Demers stayed close to him, hitting him with body and head shots. In the 4th, Contreras landed a high number of shots and came close to winning the round. However, because he was on the move most of the time, he wasn’t able to sit down on his shots enough to get any real power on them.
Demers fought well in rounds five through eight, putting together two and three punch combinations and showing a lot of different punch angles. He looked great the way he mixed up his punches in these rounds.
As far as technical boxing skills go, Demers is one of the best in the middleweight division.
The only thing he lacks is a good chin and more power, otherwise he’d probably be a champion by now. Demers was knocked out in the 3rd round two years ago when he attempted to challenge IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in May 2007.
After that loss, Demers seemed to be getting his career together, winning five consecutive times, but he ran into trouble again when he lost a 10-round split decision against Dionisio Miranda last year in August 2008. Since that time, Demers has been trying to rebuild his career facing mostly soft opposition. At 29, I hope he doesn’t waste too much time on the rebuilding process because he needs to start moving forward against top 10 opposition.