By Jim Dower: Unbeaten cruiserweight contender BJ Flores (24-0-1, 15 KO’s) continued with his painfully slow progress in moving up the ranks with a 4th round stoppage win over super middleweight journeyman Epifanio Mendoza (29-8-1, 25 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Coast Coliseum, in Biloxi, Mississippi, after Mendoza injured his left shoulder and couldn’t continue. Referee Gary Ritter stopped the bout at 1:19 of the 4th.
Mendoza, 33, hurt his left shoulder at the start of the 4th round after throwing a two jabs and recoiling in pain without even being hit. Prior to that, Mendoza was having all kinds of headaches dealing the jab and sharp combinations from the quicker and vastly superior boxer Flores. Mendoza, whom has fought most of his career at middleweight, moved up 30 pounds to take on Flores.
In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the smartest move that Mendoza could have made. A more reasonable move would have been Mendoza bulking up and fighting at light heavyweight (175), but to put roughly 30 pounds and thinking that he could be competitive at cruiserweight seemed pretty foolish.
What’s unclear is why Flores, a fighter ranked at #3 WBO, #6 WBA, #11 IBF and #WBC, would want to fight an opponent that was making such a drastic move up in weight. First of all, Mendoza is a journeyman who had lost three out of his last four fights going into the fight, but the weight issue is a real shaker.
I don’t see why Flores, a six year pro, would want to waste his time fighting someone like that. It seems like a big waste of time to me. If Flores wants to improve, he needed to take on a top cruiserweight like Denis Lebedev, Firat Arslan, Alexander Frenkel, Enad Licina, Yoan Pablo Fernandez or Alexander Alexeev, not a fighter that what fighting two divisions out of his weight class like Mendoza.
That seems like planned slaughter to me. What a waste. At any rate, Flores dominated the 1st round using his jab, as you expect. He was much more solid than Mendoza, who looked as if he had bulked up in weight on a diet of Twinkies and Ho Ho’s.
As a super middleweight (168), Mendoza was known for his power. He had Jeff Lacy in trouble at point in their fight last year before losing a close 10-round majority decision. However, the power didn’t carry over two divisions, though, as Mendoza’s punches didn’t have the same power or snap that they did at super middleweight. Mendoza did next to nothing in the opening round.
Flores jabbed most of the round until late when he charged forward and threw a three punch combination that landed. Mendoza answered back with a single looping overhand right which did nothing. The remainder of the round saw Flores continue to jab on the outside looking timid. Mendoza tried to get things going at the start of the 2nd round, throwing several big looping right hands.
However, he was far too slow and heavy to land the shots and he ended up hitting only air. Flores continue to mostly jab over and over again. In the 2nd half of the round, Flores bum rushed Mendoza a couple of times, hitting him with two and three punch combinations each time.
Flores looked good when he was throwing combinations. He went back to his jab, which he was putting a lot of power into. Flores looked really good in this round, much better than the first. In the 3rd round, Flores jabbed as usual and added some looping right hands that looked a lot like the big looping punches that Mendoza had trying without much success to land in the fight.
In the last minute of the round, Flores landed a number of nice left-right combinations and finished the round strong. Mendoza looked badly out of his league and probably was wishing he was still fighting in the super middleweight division. At the start of the 4th, Mendoza injured his left shoulder after throwing two jabs. He immediately backed away in pain.
The referee then asked him if he was okay and he nodded his head that he was. The action then resumed with Mendoza fighting with only his right arm while holding his left loosely at his side. He attempted to fight southpaw but that didn’t seem to work and he quickly abandoned it.
Flores looked hesitant to pour it on and mostly flicked a jab at Mendoza instead of trying to take advantage of the situation like a lot of fighters probably would have. Finally, Mendoza couldn’t handle the pain anymore and backed away in pain to the ropes. Referee Gary Ritter than stopped the fight at 1:19 of the 4th.