By Allan Fox: In what boxing fans had hoped would be an interesting fight to watch turned out to be really poor mismatch that probably should have never been made in the first place with boxing great Juan Manuel Marquez (54-6-1, 39 KO’s) defeating a reluctant Sergiy Fedchenko (30-2, 13 KO’s) by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision to win the interim World Boxing Organization (WBO) light welterweight title on Saturday night at the New Mexico City Arena, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.

The judges were very kind to Fedchenko giving him some rounds that he probably didn’t deserve to win. I had Marquez winning every round of the fight with ease, but here are the judges’ scores: 119-109, 118-110 and 118-110. I honestly don’t know how the judges could give Fedchenko even one round, because he was fighting on the outside the entire fight, just trying not to get hit in a survival oriented style. Fedchenko had survival written all over him. The guy didn’t want to mix it up, because every time he did, Marquez would nail him with hard counter shots to the body and head.

Like a person burned a bad experience, Fedchenko seemed unwilling to experience the pain again. He briefly tried to fight in the first two rounds, and then went into his purely defensive mode and stunk up the joint for the remaining 10 rounds of the fight. The Mexican crowd weren’t pleased and there was some boos occasionally, but not because of Marquez. He was the one making the fight. It was because Fedchenko was just looking to go the distance and didn’t put in the effort that he needed to. I saw this coming a mile away when this fight was made, and I didn’t understand why it was put together.

Marquez had Fedchenko hurt in the 10th round when he was nailing him with combinations to the head and body. Marquez later hurt Fedchenko a second time in the 12th round with hard body and head shots as he tried hard to get a knockout. Fedchenko was able to survive both rounds by clinching and running.

Overall, Marquez fought well. I thought he looked a little slower than he had in past fights and he appeared to be over-muscled. I think he would have been better off coming in lighter and faster. The extra muscle Marquez has put on really didn’t help him in this fight, because Fedchenko has the body of an accountant and no power. Marquez didn’t need extra bulk to beat a skinny beanpole like Fedchenko. All he needed was speed and workrate. It looked like Marquez opted to put on useless muscle for this fight, and perhaps he thought it would come in handy so as not to be out-weighed.

Marquez’s body punching was the key to the fight. Fedchenko would back away whenever he was hit hard with one of Marquez’s body shots. Marquez had problems landing punches to the head of Fedchenko, but when he aimed his shots to the body, he found a much higher degree of success. Fedchenko, a European fighter, seemed like he wasn’t used to being attacked to the body, and it affected him to the point where he stopped throwing punches.

In the other bouts on the card:

Saul Roman UD 10 Richard Gutierrez
Luis Vázquez SD 4 Alonso López
Shoky Sakai TKO 3 Alfonso Cibrián
Daniel Sandoval TKO 5 Michael Rosales