Lopez vs. Concepcion: Look for Bernabe to get brutally knocked out – Prediction

By Boxing News - 07/08/2010 - Comments

By Chris Williams: When you take an unremarkable fighter like Bernabe Concepcion (28-3-1, 15 KO’s) and put them in the ring with a big talent like WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (28-0, 25 KO’s) then bad things happen to that fighter. Beyond being rather pedestrian, Concepcion also is young at only 22, easy to hit and not particularly fast or powerful.

To look at Concepcion’s physique, you’d think that he could knock a slender fighter like Lopez clean through a brick wall. However, it’s the opposite. It’s Lopez who has the huge power and the over-muscled Concepcion who can’t punch worth a lick. Concepcion is currently ranked number #5 by the WBO, and recently defeated Mario Santiago by a 10 round decision in February.

I personally don’t see Concepcion as a top 15 fighter. He may be ranked in the top 15, but I see that as only because the talent is watered down because of the four different versions of each title. Beyond his win over Santiago, Concepcion’s other big bout of his career was his 7th round disqualification loss to Steven Luevano last year in August. Concepcion was getting dominated by Luevano until after the 7th round ended when Concepcion nailed Luevano with a right hand moments after the round ended. This resulted in Concepcion being disqualified for the foul.

On paper, the Concepcion vs. Lopez figures to be a hopelessly one-sided fight with Lopez battering the over-matched Concepcion for the entire fight.
Lopez needs to beat Concepcion so that he can get a big money fight against Rafael Marquez, the brother of WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez. Lopez needs to make sure that he’s not looking past Concepcion and recognize that he’s a dangerous to some extent.

I expect Lopez to catch up to Concepcion and knock him out by the 6th or 7th rounds to get the win. Lopez, 5’7”, has a three inch height advantage over Concepcion and you can expect that Lopez will use his superior height to his own benefit by keeping Concepcion on the outside where he will be unable to land his big shots.

However, once Lopez brings the fight to the inside, I expect Concepcion to fold up quickly as he starts to eat more and more power shots from Lopez. Concepcion lacks flexibility and will probably run over out gas quite because of his big muscular physique.



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