By Jason Kim: In pretty much the only bright spot on a disappointing card on Saturday night, World Boxing Organization super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (26-0, 24 KO’s) dominated Canadian based challenger Oliver Lontchi (18-1-2, 8 KO‘s), beating him by a 9th round stoppage at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, new Jersey. Lopez, 25, dropped Lontchi, 26, twice in the fight, once in the second round and a final time in the 9th round.
Following the 9th round, the fight was stopped in between rounds by Lontchi’s corner because he had taken a beating and wasn’t competitive. This was Lopez’s fourth defense of his WBO super bantamweight title that he won with a 1st round TKO win over Daniel Ponce De Leon last year in June 2008.
None of Lopez’s title challengers have been even close to being competitive with two being stopped in the 1st round. Say what you will about Lontchi, who rarely landed anything all fight long, he was still able to make it through the 9th round, even if he ended up taking a beating for his efforts.
Ranked number #7 in the WBO, Lontchi looked like he was full bore in the survival mode in the 1st round, as he dived in continuously almost with every punch trying to clinch. Lopez looked none to happy with all the clinching and gave looks to the referee to see if he would do something about the excessive clinching.
However, he seemed okay with it and let Lontchi continue in to fight in this pattern for the entire fight. The style may have been effective in keeping Lontchi in the fight for longer than he probably would have been otherwise, but it didn’t make him competitive. For that, Lontchi had no real hope because he didn’t have the power, speed or overall boxing skills needed to make it an interesting fight.
Late in the 1st round, Lopez timed one of Lontchi’s clinch attempts perfectly, and nailed him coming in with a big right hook. The punch drove Lontchi back, but somehow he was able to stay on his feet. In the 2nd round, Lopez caught Lontchi with a nice short right hook that sent him down. Lopez then teed off on Lontchi while the Canadian based fighter covered up on the ropes and took big punishment.
Lontchi was able to clinch his way out of the round without going down again. In the 3rd round, Lopez stalked Lontchi around the ring like a hunter, loading up with straight left hands and right hooks. Lontchi was mostly moving and not even trying to throw a punch.
It kept him in the fight longer but he wasn’t really boxing at this point. Lontchi continued with his survival strategy in the 4th round, moving and clinching and not throwing punches. Lopez was able to cut off the ring and trap Lontchi up against the ropes at one point and nailed him with a flurry of big shots.
Lontchi had a slightly better round in the 5th, landing eight punches during the entire round. It was a terrible number but for Lontchi it was actually quite good because he had been landing five and below in the last two rounds. Lopez battered Lontchi in the 6th and 7th rounds, hitting him with big hooks and hard straight left hands.
Lontchi was nothing more than a human punching bag in both of these rounds and unable to land much of anything. Part of the problem was that he wasn’t even trying to punch. However, one of the punches that Lontchi did land caused a slight bit of swelling under Lopez’s left eye.
In the 8th round, Lopez slowed down somewhat, throwing mostly left hands and not throwing as many combinations as in the previous rounds. Early in the 9th, Lopez landed a flurry of shots as Lontchi covered up on the ropes.
Moments later, Lopez dropped Lontchi with a straight left hand. Lopez then blasted away at Lontchi for the remainder of the round, hitting him with powerful left hands without getting hit with any return fire. In between rounds, Lontchi’s corner decided he had enough and had the fight stopped.
“I want one more fight at 122, and then I want to move up,” Lopez said after the fight.
Comments are closed.