By Dan Ambrose: WBC Silver featherweight champion Cristian ‘Diamante’ Mijares (55-8-2, 26 KOs) won a controversial 12 round unanimous decision victory over Shohei Kawashima (14-1-2, 3 KOs) last Saturday night in front of a pro-Mijares crowd at the Palenque Vicente Fernandez in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico.
The three judges scored the fight in Mijares’ favor by the scores 115-113, 115-113 and 115-113. I scored the fight quite differently. I turned the sound off on my television, and I had Kawashima winning all 12 rounds. It wasn’t even close.
My score was 120-108 for Kawashima. The scoring for the fight was terrible in my opinion, because the only guy that was landing real shots in the fight was Kawashima. The 35-year-old Mjjares, who looked quite a big heavier than Kawashima after the two had rehydrated for the fight, was missing and having his punches blocked all night long.
The only punches that Mijares was able to land in the fight were occasional jabs. That’s it. Mijares was unable to land any of his power shots, as Kawashima blocked them or they simply missed due to poor accuracy. Never the less, I noticed that the crowd cheered loudly for the missed punches from Mijares, as if the shots had landed. You have to wonder whether the judges heard the screaming for Mijares from the boxing fans, and then they scored the rounds for him based off the noise rather than what was actually happening.
Kawashima stalked Mijares round the ring in rounds one through six, nailing him with hard rights to the head, and left hooks. Kawashima were snapping Mijares’ head back repeatedly. Mijares would try and fire back shots, but he would miss with nearly everything he threw. The only punches that Mijares was able to land were jabs.
Mijares looked really bad in this fight. When comparing how he fought tonight in the way that he looked during his best year of his boxing career, it was like looking at two different people. Mijares now is slow, with noticeable fat around his midsection, and no longer landing his punches. A prime Mijares was lean, and constantly landing shots against his opposition.
The World Boxing Council has Mijares ranked #4 at featherweight. I don’t agree with that ranking. I don’t rate Mijares as being better than many of the guys that the WBC has him ranked above, such as Ronny Rios and Kiko Martinez. All the fighters that the WBC has Mijares ranked above in their top 15 rankings, I don’t agree with. Mijares would be easily beaten by all the fighters the WBC has him ranked above in my opinion. Of course, if we had scoring like last nights’ fight, then I guess Mijares would beat all those guys including the WBC champion Gary Russell Jr. if he wasn’t knocked out by him, which I think he would be.
Mijares was a good fighter 10 years ago, as he held the IBF/WBA/WBC super flyweight titles. Mijares had a couple of reigns where he held super flyweight titles. Mijares’ most notable wins during his best years were victories over Jorge Arce, Reynaldo Lopez, and Alexander Munoz. I saw the Mijares vs. Munoz fight in 2008, and I had Munoz winning that fight. Mijares won a controversial 12 round split decision. Mijares was eventually knocked out by Vic Darchinyan in 2008. Darchinyan toyed with Mijares in that fight. It was a total mismatch. Mijares also lost consecutive fights to Nehomar Cermeno in 2009.
Other boxing results on the card:
Francisco “Chihuas” Rodriguez TKO 5 Crison Omayao
Irma ‘Terremoto’ Garcia TKO 8 Leticia Uribe
Ivan Alvarez UD 8 Javier Prieto