What does Benavidez’s domination of Gesta in sparring say for Gesta’s future?

By Boxing News - 08/24/2011 - Comments

By Chris Williams: If you were one of the many boxing fans who saw the recent sparring session between light welterweight talent Jose Benavidez (12-0, 11 KO’s) and light welterweight hopeful Mercito Gesta (22-0-1, 12 KO’s) you no doubt likely came away shaking your head wondering what Freddie Roach sees in the short 5’7″ Gesta.

Gesta was totally dominated by the only 19-year-old Benavidez in a sparring session where Gesta could barely lay a glove on the slender Benavidez. It was all Gesta could do to land a body shot. He certainly wasn’t landing any head shots, because he missed most of the time when he would attempt to land something upstairs. But his hand speed just wasn’t there and his defense was atrocious.

That wasn’t the first time I’ve seen Gesta look poor, but in the past he was facing 2nd tier opposition and he could at least get away with looking bad by eventually scoring a knockout. But that was against guys that were far out of his class. Benavidez made Gesta look awful to the point where I just don’t know what even a guy like Roach do anything with him.

You can spin the Benavidez-Gesta sparring session all you want and make it seem as if it meant nothing but it does have meaning when you get dominated. It means somethings not right. I don’t know what Roach can other than try and steer Gesta back down to the lightweight division instead of the light welterweights. I’d hate to see Gesta get torn apart by someone like Marcos Maidana or clowned by Amir Khan.



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