By Scott Gilfoid: IBF World featherweight champion Lee Selby (25-1, 9 KOs) overcame a bad cut on his right eye to box his way to a 12 round unanimous decision over mandatory challenger Jonathan Victor Barros (41-5-1, 22 KOs) on Saturday night at the Wembley Arena in London, England.
Selby was cut over his right eye in round 5 after the two fighters banged heads. But before the cut opened up, Selby was already bruising around his right eye from the hard shots from Barros. The bigger shots from Barros were doing a job on the face of Selby.
Selby dropped the desperate 33-year-old Barros in the 12th round. Barros was fine after getting back to his feet. Never the less, Selby attempted to finish him off the Argentinian with no luck. Barros was not going to be knocked out by the light hitting Selby, who couldn’t punch hard enough to do much in the fight other than cut him. Selby’s best weapon in the fight was his jab. He was constantly flicking his jab into the fight of Barros, and then running away to keep from getting hit.
The constant movement was hard to watch because it made the fight tedious at times. Boxing fans like to see action. Selby doesn’t have the power to stand and fight against sluggers like Barros. We saw that tonight. When Selby would stand stationary for any length of time, Barros would land big shots and get the better of him.
The judges scored the fight 119-108, 117-110 and 117-110. The scores were pretty fair. Barros didn’t have the boxing skills to win the fight no matter how hard he tried.
Selby, 30, said after the fight that he would like to get it on with former two division world champion Carl Frampton.
“That’s a fight that I would love to have, and the British boxing fans would love as well,” said Selby after the fight about a match against Carl Frampton.
A fight between Frampton and Selby will likely need to wait until after Selby faces one of the featherweight champions Abner Mares or Leo Santa Cruz. I don’t see Selby wanting to mix it up with WBC champion Gary Russell Jr. or Oscar Valdez, because those are guys are just too tough. Selby wouldn’t be able to do much against either of those fighters in my opinion. But then again, I don’t see Selby beating Santa Cruz or Mares. Those guys would be awfully tough for Selby. Santa Cruz is good at beating runners like Selby. He would chase him down and go to the bread basket rather than focusing on throwing head shots the way that Barros was doing. That was a big mistake for Barros tonight. He should have targeted Selby’s body, as he had no way of blocking those shots or dodging them. You’ve got to be smart when you’re fighting a runner like Selby.
At this point, I think Carl Frampton would be way too good for Selby. I think it would be a massacre. Frampton is too good for Selby. Scott Quigg is too good as well. I see Quigg breaking Selby down with pressure and big power shots. Quigg might miss a lot of punches, but he would catch Selby with something sooner or later to get the knockout win. Selby is a good fighter, but he’s more of a paper champion and not THE champion at featherweight in my view.
The featherweight division is stacked right now with a lot of talented fighters. The contenders in the division right now are better than some of the champions. Joseph Diaz Jr. would be a real handful for Selby or any of the champions. He’s a very, very good fighter. You’ve got to give Selby’s promoter Eddie Hearn a lot of credit for the careful match-making he’s done for him.
Hearn hasn’t put Selby in with anyone too talented. Hearn has got to know what he’s got in Selby, and he’s matching him with care. If Hearn had thrown Selby in with guys like Oscar Valdez, Russell Jr, Frampton, Quigg or Diaz Jr., he’d have been beaten a long time ago. Hearn has been smart in matching of Selby. That’s the way Hearn is. He’s that way with his other fighters as well. We never saw Hearn match cruiserweight Tony Bellew against the talents in the cruiserweight division like Mairis Briedis, Murat Gassiev or Oleksandr Usyk. Instead, we saw Hearn put Bellew in with the likes of BJ Flores and Ilunga Makabu. What does that tell? Hearn is a good match-maker, and he’s done well with making Selby a champion and keeping him one.