By Jim Dower: In a make or break fight for former two-division world champion Joel Casamayor (38-5-1, 22 KO’s), he defeated little known Mexican Manuel Leyva (18-2, 10 KO’s) by a 10 round split decision on Friday night at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 97-92, 96-93 and 94-95. Casamayor had talked about retiring if he lost the fight. He won the fight but it’s was a close bout with Casamayor struggling and then running out of gas in the last three rounds.

Casamayor, a former super featherweight and lightweight champion, is now fighting as a light welterweight. On Friday, he was facing a welterweight in Leyva, albeit a 2nd tier welterweight with zero experience against fighters like Casamayor.

Casamayor knocked Leylva down with a hard left to the midsection in the 5th round after hurting him earlier in the round with a left below the belt followed immediately by another left to the head that staggered Leyva. Although Leyva was given time to recover from the low blow, Casmayor poured it on for the remainder of the round and scored a knockdown.

Leyva showed an excellent jab and good left hand throughout the fight. He gave Casamayor problems in the first four rounds, appearing to win at least two of them with his powerful jab and constant pressure. Casamayor took control of the fight in the 5th and 6th after knocking Leyva down in the 5th and battering him with left uppercuts and body shots in both rounds. However, Casamayor ran out of gas completely in the 7th through 10th rounds, and spent much of the time holding, moving and landing an occasional pot shot. Leyva pressured Casamayor constantly in the last four rounds and punished him with jabs and lefts.

Overall, Casamayor looked decent for a light welterweight. However, it wasn’t a good sign to see him struggling to beat a 2nd tier fighter, even through he was fighting a welterweight. Against a good light welterweight like Lucas Matthysse, Timothy Bradley or Marcos Maidana, Casamayor would have lost the fight and possibly been stopped. At 39, he’s going to have problems if he faces one of these younger light welterweights and it’s hard to see him beating any of them. If he can barely beat a fighter like Leyva, that pretty much tells you all you need to know about Casamayor’s chances against quality light welterweights. He might want consider retiring unless he can get lucky and get a title shot based on fighting B level fighters for awhile. I wouldn’t advise him to fight anyone good at light welterweight because he will likely lose.