By Jim Dower: Former WBC bantamweight champion Luis Nery (27-0, 21 KOs) destroyed journeyman Jason Canoy (29-9, 19 KOs) in the 3rd round TKO on Saturday night in capturing the vacant World Boxing Council Silver bantamweight title at the Gasmart Stadium in Tijuana, Mexico.
Nery, 23, knocked the Filipino Canoy down with a flurry of shots in the 3rd round. Canoy got back to his feet and was met with a storm of heavy blows from Nery, which prompted referee Jesus Becerra to step in and halt the fight. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:44 of round three. Nery knocked the over-matched Canoy down twice in the fight in dropping him in round one and three.
In round one, Nery stormed after Canoy, 28, belting him with shots with both hands. With Nery hitting Canoy at will with shots, the Filipino fighter hit the deck. He made it back up to beat the count, and continued to take punishment for the remainder of the round.
Nery continued to blast away at Canoy in round two in hitting him with lefts and rights repeatedly. Nery was loading up on everything he threw, and not caring too much about getting hit back. At the rate that Nery was hitting the defenseless Canoy, it was only a matter of time before he was either knocked out the fight was halted by the referee due to the one-sided nature of the contest.
Nery showed no respect for Canoy’s punching power the entire fight, as he attacked him nonstop like a modern stay Aaron Pryor. Canoy got Nery’s attention occasionally when would land something, but he wasn’t able to connect with enough shots to keep him off of him. Nery was just unloading at will with a cascade of shots, and Canoy was too slow to respond quick enough to back him off. Nery’s volume punching was too much for Canoy to deal with.
This fight was a mismatch from the time it was put together. Canoy was picked out by Nery’s management as a match to get the ring rust out, considering he’d been out of the ring for the last seven months after stopping former WBC 118 pound champion Shinsuke Yamanaka in the 3rd round last March in their rematch. Nery came in three pounds over the bantamweight limit for that fight at 121 pounds, and he was tripped of his WBC title. The fight was still allowed to go ahead, and Nery wiped Yamanaka out in two rounds. In his first fight against Yamanaka, Nery knocked him out in the 4th round last year in August. The win for Nery ended six-year run for Yamanaka as the WBC bantamweight champion. The southpaw Nery looked to be too powerful and too fast for Yamanaka, who still looked like a very good fighter at 35, but he was dealing with someone that always would have given him problems.
Canoy came into the fight last Saturday having lost two out of his last three fights to Mzuvukile Magwaca and Hiroaki Teshigawara.
Nery is expected to go after the vacant WBC bantamweight title which was stripped from him last March.