(Photo credit Amanda Westcott/SHOWTIME) By Jim Dower: Former WBO junior middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade (23-0, 16 Kos) gave the badly over-matched #7 WBO, #8 IBF, #10 WBC contender Willie Nelson (25-3-1, 15 KOs) a boxing lesson tonight in knocking him down four times in the process of stopping him in the 12th round in their WBC 154lb title eliminator at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino, in Verona, New York, USA.
Andrade dropped Nelson in the 12th with a right hand. Referee Dick Pakozdi then stopped the fight at 1:38 of the round. Andrade knocked Nelson down twice in the 12th, once in the 11th and another time in the 1st. With this win, Andrade is now the second WBC 154 mandatory challenger to WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo. That’s a winnable fight for the southpaw Andrade, but he’s likely to get hit a lot more by Charlo than he did against Nelson tonight.
At times, it looked like Andrade would punch himself out because he was throwing so many punches to try to keep Nelson off of him. Andrade looked nervous and clearly tired in the first half of the fight from the constant pressure Nelson was putting on him. Much of the power that Andrade had on his punches early in the contest, disappeared by the midpoint of the fight. However, once Andrade realized that Nelson was too slow of hand to land his shots, it seemed to help him relax a little in the second half of the fight.
Nelson looked hesitant to throw punches, and this enabled Andrade to land at will. Had Andrade been fighting someone that would shots back at him, we might have seen a different fight. Nelson just looked confused and timid. Andrade’s promoters obviously made the right choice in selecting Nelson as an opponent rather than choosing someone that might have beaten him like Julian Williams. Nelson is more of a fringe contender than a top five type of guy. He would have needed a lot more talent to beat Andrade in this fight.
The one negative that you had to take away from this fight in watching Andrade was how he seemed to dash away each time Nelson would even hint at throwing a punch. Andrade looked weak in the chin in the few instances he was hit by Nelson. At one point, Andrade was hurt by a right uppercut from Nelson in round three when the two fighters were standing in close. The shot had Andrade holding on for dear life. The thing is, Charlo can hit with that kind of punching power all night long, and he’s got much better hand speed than Nelson does.
Charlo won’t follow Andrade around and not throw punches like Nelson was doing in this fight. For better or for worse, Charlo is going to let his hands go and look to get his pound of flesh from Andrade. That’s the way Charlo and his brother Jermall Charlo are. They aren’t afraid to let their hands go, and they both have the punching power and the hand speed to do major damage when they do land their big shots.
“I’m coming to get those belts,” said Andrade. “People can’t run no more. The best have to fight the best. I’m coming for them. I came back, I’m stronger. Me and my team worked hard. We figured out what we need to do to take it to the next level. I’m ready for the Charlo brothers. I want them.”
Well, let’s hope that if Andrade does fight Charlo and beat him, he’ll be a more active fighter than he’s been in the past, because he’s been his own worst enemy since he won the vacant WBO 154lb title in a fight against Vanes Martirosyan in November 2013. After winning the belt, Charlo only defended the title once in beating Brian Rose in June of 2014. The 6’1” Andrade then sat on the title not doing anything until the World Boxing Organization finally stripped him of the belt for inactivity in July of 2015 after he hadn’t defended the belt in over a year.
The WBO couldn’t just let Andrade sit on their WBO junior middleweight title like a hen and not stay active. Before Andrade’ fight against Nelson, he hadn’t fought since October of 2015. That was eight months ago. Future events cast their shadows before.
Even if Andrade does beat Charlo to win the WBC 154lb title, it’s possible that we could see Andrade stay inactive and wind up getting stripped of his title again unless he can learn from the past and stay busy by fighting anyone. Andrade just needs not to be so picky. If he can’t get a big name to fight him, then he needs to fight whoever he can.
All in all, I wasn’t that impressed with Andrade. He was stumbling over his own two feet to try and get away from Nelson each time he would even hint at throwing a punch, and there was a lot of ugly clinching that was hard to like about his performance. Andrade has decent power, but he runs and holds too much to be an entertaining fighter. The Charlos look are arguably more entertaining to watch than Andrade.