By Jim Dower: 36-year-old former light welterweight World Boxing Association champion Diosbelys Hurtado (42-3-1, 25 KOs) defeated journeyman Manuel Garnica (25-11, 13 KOs) by an unimpressive 12-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Miccosukee Resort & Gaming in Miami, Florida.
Hurtado, who was making his first defense of his WBO Latino welterweight title, did little other than jab and pot shot for most of the fight. Hurtado’s once great hand speed is largely gone and he’s now reduced to jabbing and landing one punch at a time. The final judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-111, 117-111.
Garnica, 34, came into Friday night’s fight having lost six out of his last might fights, three of them by knockout. His hand speed was even slower than Hurtado’s and he did little in the fight other than plodding after Hurtado, missing a lot of landing on occasion.
Hurtado started the fight off well throwing combinations but starting in the 2nd round, Hurtado began to throw mostly jabs and single shots, a move that looked to be done in part because he didn’t have fast enough hands to get in more than one punch at a time without getting nailed by Garnica.
After the first round, the fight was almost unwatchable because since Hurtado did little other than throwing jabs and single shots. Garnica made the rounds close, but he didn’t have the talent to be competitive with Hurtado.
In rounds five through twelve, the bout stuck to the repetitive pattern of Hurtado jabbing, moving and pot shotting. Garnica followed after Hurtado round after round, but because of Hurtado’s movement and jab, it was hard for Garnica to land more than one shot at a time.
Where Hurtado goes with this win is unclear. He can stick around and continue to defend the little known WBO Latino, but as soon as Hurtado steps it up against a top tier welterweight, it probably won’t be good for him. At 36, Hurtado might be too ripe to do much in the welterweight division.
Hurtado’s lack of hand speed would make it difficult for Hurtado to move back down to his old fighting weight of light welterweight, because the fighters are lot quicker than he is and would probably dominate him with ease at this point in his career.
Hurtado could serve as a gate keeper in the welterweight division, but that might be asking too much of him at this stage of his boxing career. In Hurtado’s last fight, he took a ferocious beating in winning a 12-round split decision over the 25-14 Arturo Morua in April.