Andrade defeats Herrera, but looks badly flawed

By Boxing News - 01/09/2011 - Comments

Image: Andrade defeats Herrera, but looks badly flawedBy Jim Dower: 2008 U.S Olympian Demetrius Andrade (12-0, 8 KO’s) defeated Alberto Herrera (7-2-1, 5 KO’s) by an 8 round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Cox Pavilion, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 79-73, 80-72 and 80-72. The Andrade may have won the fight, but he showed an awful lot of flaws during the fight on defense and by his inability to throw combinations. He looked for the most part like a technically unsound version of Andre Dirrell, only more offensively minded. Dirrell is a bigger puncher and a better fighter on offense when he wants to be, but he doesn’t think offense as much as Andrade.

The fight was mostly controlled by Andrade throughout the eight round bout. However, Herrera began to start taking advantage of Andrade’s tendency to drop his hands after throwing shots by tagging him with combinations. Andrade also had a bad habit of throwing big uppercuts where he would wind up from almost to the floor and throw it without keeping his guard up. He was able to get away with this most of the time, as Herrera was far too limited to make Andrade pay for his mistakes. But, against a better fighter than this, Andrade will have problems in the future.

Andrade looked very impressive when he was landing uppercuts and single left hands to the head. He landed some shots that would have knocked out a lot of fighters. However, in the 6th, Herrera began to find Andrade more and more with shots, because Andrade started showing signs of fatigue. Herrera was able to land but he couldn’t do much because of his lack of power. In the 8th, Andrade came out fast out of the blocks, flailing with his punches and looking sloppy. He dominated the round but looked amateurish and wild, often falling into a clinch. It wasn’t impressive.

Andrade needs a lot of work if he wants to be able to capture a title and hold onto it for awhile. If he gets the right trainer, I can see him improving to the point where he’ll be the best fighter in the junior middleweight division some day. Even now, Andrade may be good enough to beat pretty much everyone in the division, but he needs work if wants to keep from getting knocked out or beaten up in the future. The guy has got some serious flaws in his game.



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