By Jim Dower: IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez (33-3, 13 KO’s) totally dominated a clueless Mercito Gesta (26-1-1, 14 KO’s) tonight in beating him by an easy 12 round unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The final judges’ were 117-111, 119-109 and 118-110.
Gesta never really let hands go tonight. He was standing flat-footed in the center of the ring much of the time, looking at himself on the screen but not letting his hands go. He seemed too calm for the situation and was unable to make up the huge height advantage of the 5’10” Vazquez.
In the 10th, Gesta bloodied Vazquez’s nose with a hard right hand but he failed to go after him. Vazquez looked a little rattled from that but he stayed on the move and Gesta continued to stand in the center of the ring.
Gesta did a lot of strange things in the fight besides the staring at the screen. He was clowning around at times when he would get hit, as if to show that he wasn’t getting hurt, yet the punches were knocking him backwards at time. He stood still, dropped his hands and motioned for Vazquez to come inside and slug with him, but why would he? Gesta had to know what he was getting himself into before he took the fight, so it was strange to see him asking Vazquez to fight his kind of fight.
In hindsight, you have to put part of the blame on Gesta’s defeat on his promoter Bob Arum. Gesta had been put in with a lot of soft opposition before this and he didn’t get the right kind of preparation for someone fighting for a world title.
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