By Jim Dower: Undefeated light welterweight contender Victor Cayo (23-0, 15 KO’s) easily defeated former International Boxing Federation lightweight champion Julio Diaz (36-6, 26 KO’s) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. The final judges’ scores were 97-93, 96-94 and 98-92. Cayo, 24, ranked #3 in the IBF light welterweight division, toyed with the former champion Diaz for 10 rounds, hitting him pretty much at will and showing a lot of different looks to his offense.
However, Cayo didn’t show much in the way of power, speed or defense unfortunately. His style of fighting, having his hands down below his waist, reminded me of a poor man’s version of Roy Jones Jr. and Floyd Mayweather Jr., but without the hand speed, power and defense.
Diaz, 29, doesn’t look like the same fighter he was while holding down the IBF lightweight title on two separate occasions from 2004 to 2007. Diaz didn’t attack Cayo as fiercely as he needed to if he wanted to make the fight closer. As it was, Diaz still was able to make the fight reasonably close by taking advantage of Cayo’s terrible defense by clobbering him with big shots every now and then.
In the 1st round, Cayo moved around the ring with his hands at his waist, throwing mostly hooks. Diaz looked timid and rarely attacked Cayo even though there were a ton of opportunities for him to land his shots if he wanted to.
At the end of the 2nd round, Cayo staggered Diaz with a big right hand with seconds to in the round. Diaz tried to load up on his shots in this round but was hit with counter shots as he would come after Cayo. What Diaz needed to be doing is throwing a lot of punches and coming forward instead of loading up with one big shot at a time.
In the 3rd round, Diaz was hit with a lot of right hands from Cayo in the first half of the round. Diaz finally started getting his offense untracked in the second part of the round and was able to hit Cayo with some nice shots. It was still not even close to being enough to win the round.
Diaz began to take advantage of Cayo’s low guard in the 4th round, hitting Cayo cleanly. Cayo had a nasty habit of going straight back when attacked and was tagged by Diaz on a few occasions with big shots in the round.
In rounds five through eight, Cayo stayed on the inside, landing short punches to the head of Diaz and showing good ability to twist out of the way of Diaz’s return fire. Diaz did land some nice shots in the 8th round, once again taking advantage of Cayo’s low guard.
Cayo upped the rate of his punches in the 9th and 10th rounds, running away with the fight with his medium powered punches. Diaz looked like a beaten fighter in the last two rounds and just seemed to be going through the motions.
Overall, it was a decent fight from Cayo as he showed some nifty skills. I think he’s already good enough to beat the WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan. However, Cayo has a long ways to go to compete against fighters like Timothy Bradley and Kendall Holt. They’re too fast and powerful for a fighter like Cayo and would take advantage of his porous defense to beat him when/if the time comes for a fight between them.
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On the undercard, heavyweight Derric Rossy (22-2, 12 KO’s) defeated one time heavyweight title challenger Carl Davis Drumond (26-2, 20 KO’s) by a 10-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 99-91, 99-91 and 99-91.
Rossy controlled the entire fight landing way more punches than Drumond. Seeing how badly Drumond looked in the fight, it was hard to imagine that he was undefeated with a 26-0 record only five months ago before losing a sixth round technical decision to WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev in February. Drumond looked slow and unable to pull the trigger with his punches.
Rossy, who looked limited and slow in losing a 7th round stoppage against weak punching Eddie Chambers in 2007 and a 5th round stoppage to equally weak throwing Alexander Dimitrenko in May 2008, looked outstanding against the limited Drumond. Rossy, 29, used a lot of movement and a hard jab to control the tempo of the fight in the early rounds of the fight.
Circling the ring and constantly changing directions, Rossy was able to stay away from any big exchanges with the harder punching Drumond. By the 4th round, the fight was all Rossy as he was doing all the punching while Drumond slowly plodded after him without punching. Drumond began to pressure Rossy more starting in the 6th round and was able to slow Rossy’s movement down.
However, Drumond still couldn’t pull the trigger with his punches even with Rossy right in front of him like a sitting duck. It was Rossy who threw all the punches on those occasions, nailing Drumond with hooks and uppercuts. In rounds seven through ten, Rossy finished strong throwing well to the head and body and not having to worry about any return fire from Drumond.
While I think Rossy looked good in this fight, he had an opponent who did absolutely nothing on offense. Had this been a fighter with good power like Samuel Peter of the Klitschko brothers, I doubt that Rossy would have made it to the 3rd round. He’s a good B level fighter but that’s about it.
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Unbeaten bantamweight prospect Chris Avalos (11-0, 9 KO’s) stopped Andre Wilson (11-3-1, 9 KO’s) in the 2nd round of a eight round bout. Avalos, 19, knocked Wilson down twice in the 2nd round and was unloading on him against the ropes when referee Jose Cobian stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:28 of the round. Wilson, 26, looked good in the 1st round using his jab and combinations to control the round. Avalos did little until the end of the round.
At the start of the 2nd round, Avalos landed a crushing right hand that sent Wilson down on the canvas. Badly hurt, Wilson got to his feet and was hit with a series of shots to the head and sent to the canvas for a second time by a right hand. Wilson got to his feet and was immediately met by a surge of punches from Avalos. Wilson backed up to the ropes and began to get bombarded there until referee Jose Cobian stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:28 of the round.
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