By Dave Lahr: Former World Boxing Association/WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (36-5-2, 15 KOs) will be fighting a rematch this Saturday night against Venezuelan Nehomar Cermeno (17-0, 10 KO’s) in a 12-round bout for the interim WBA bantamweight title at the Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Mijares, 27, lost a 12 round split decision to Cermeno in March 2009, in a fight that I had Mijares winning quite easily by at least four rounds.

It’s hard to say which fight two of the judges were watching because it couldn’t have been this one. Two of the judges scored it 115-113 and 116-112 for Cermeno, while the third had it 117-111 for Mijares. I was in complete agreement with this judge. It wasn’t a close fight at all. Cermeno looked awkward, fighting without coordination and missing most of his shots all night long.

Cermeno, 29, certainly threw a lot of punches and landed a slightly higher amount of punches than Mijares. However, Mijares landed with a much higher percentage, with better form and power than Cermeno. Mijares was also much better on defense, blocking many of Cermeno’s shots all night long.

I’ve never been much of a fan of Mijares in the past, but this fight was so clearly a win for him, it just seemed wrong that he wasn’t given the victory in this case.

Mijares is currently ranked number #3 in the World Boxing Association bantamweight division and can ill afford to lose this fight and still stay at the top of the division. Mijares is still young at 27, but if he loses this fight, it will be a crucial blow to his once promising career. Mijares held the WBC super flyweight title from 2007 to 2008, defending it six times before losing it to Vic Darchinyan in a 9th round TKO loss in November 2008.

It was a case of Darchinyan having far too much power for Mijares in that fight, knocking him down with a big left uppercut in the 1st round. For the next eight rounds, Darchinyan battered Mijares around the ring, hitting him at will with big left hands to the head and body. In the 9th round, Darchinyan finished Mijares off with two left hands to the head that sent Mijares down for the final time.

Mijares appeared to be on his way to rebounding from that defeat in his fight with Cermeno four months later in March 2009. However, as I mentioned already, two of the judges scored the fight in a bizarre manner, giving the fight to Cermeno.

On Saturday night, look for Mijares to box Cermeno from the outside, using pin point shots to the head and jabs to control the wild Cermeno. Like last time, Cermeno will probably wind up throwing a lot o punches in the fight, but you can expect most of them to be either picked off on the gloves of Mijares or end up missing by a mile.

Cermeno doesn’t have much power and will be trying to pretty much overwhelm Mijares with punches in the fight. It didn’t seem to be working last time out from what I saw of the fight. Let’s hope the fight is scored better this time out.