By Eric Thomas: WBC featherweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (44-4, 35 KO’s) will be making his first and possibly his last title defense against unbeaten #5 WBC, #11 WBO, #14 IBF contender Jayson Velez (20-0, 15 KO’s) on March 2nd at a venue still to be determined in the United States.
Ponce De Leon, 32, just finished capturing the World Boxing Council title in his last fight against former champion Jhonny Gonzalez in an 8th round technical decision victory in September. De Leon knocked Gonzalez in the 6th and the fight was halted in the 8th after Gonzalez suffered a bad cut over his right eye after the two fighters clashed heads.
The technical decision loss may have saved Gonzalez from getting knocked out because that’s where the fight appeared to be heading at the time that the fight was stopped.
Ponce De Leon is going to have his hands full with the 5’9” Velez, as he not only is taller than him by four inches, but he appears to hit harder, and he’s eight years younger. That’s going to be tough for De Leon to win this fight unless his chin holds up and he’s able to block some of Velez’s punches.
I do think that the stork-like Velez can be beaten, but it’ll take pressure from De Leon to do it. He’s not going to win this fight by letting Velez control the action from the outside. De Leon has to wage war with him in the trenches and get to his chin before Velez can get to his.
Velez defeated Salvador Sanchez, a good fighter, by an easy 3rd round knockout earlier this month on December 1st. Sanchez was down in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, and he was frequently knocked backwards from the force of Velez’s huge shots. Velez also has wins over Levi Brea and Jose Angel Beranza. Those guys obviously aren’t in the same class as Ponce De Leon, so those victories don’t really tell us about how good Velez is. The rest of his opposition isn’t all that special, as most of them are clearly 2nd and 3rd tier fighters.
Ponce De Leon has only lost to really good fighters during his career in defeats against Celestino Caballero, Juan Manuel Lopez, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Adrien Broner. It’s going to be interesting to see if Velez can join that group of fighters. I suspect he will because he punches as hard as most of them, and that’s clearly one area where De Leon can be beaten.
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