By Chris Williams: Light welterweight Mercito Gesta (22-0, 12 KO’s) is training for a September 17th 10 round fight against Manuel Perez (16-6-1, 4 KO’s) at the Wild Card gym in Los Angeles, California. In watching some of the recent sparring between the 23-year-old Gesta and prospect Jose Benevidez Jr., I can’t say I was very impressed with Gesta. He looked terrible, absolutely terrible in getting drilled over and over again the tall, slim Benevidez.
The 5’7″ Gesta seems to lack hand speed, and of course height and was little more than a punching bag for Benevidez. This isn’t a good sign for Gesta for him entering a new division. He needs to move back down to lightweight where I think he has a slight chance of being a contender rather than having him compete at 140 and get dominated by the better fighters.
In just looking at the sparring session against Benevidez, you can see all the problems that Gesta has shown in his past fights – poor hand speed, poor work work rate and poor foot movement. I can’t see this guy ever winning a title unless it’s one of those situations where he goes after a vacant belt against a weak opponent that one of the sanctioning bodies has suddenly pushed to the top of the rankings. I can see Gesta winning a title under one of those situations but not holding onto it very long.
Gesta’s promoter Bob Arum is very excited about him, seeing him as the next huge Filipino star. I don’t know what Arum is looking at because Gesta doesn’t have the same qualities that Manny Pacquiao possesses as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see Gesta as being the next big thing. I think Nonito Donaire is a much, much, much better fighter than this guy. That’s the guy Arum should be salivating over.
Gesta reminds me a lot of welterweight Mark Melligen, a fighter with good power but very average hand speed and defensive skills. That’s who I see Gesta as being closer to, and I certainly don’t see Melligen as the next big thing.
Comments are closed.