By Allan Fox: Jamal Herring easily defended his WBO super featherweight title on Saturday night in defeating #12 WBO Jonathan Oquendo by an 8th round disqualification on ESPN at the Bubble at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 34-year-old ‘Semper Fi’ Herring (22-2, 10 KOs) had problems seeing due to a cut over his right eye from the 5th round. Following the 8th round, Herring chose to have the fight stopped due to his low vision.
As a result, he was given an 8th round DQ win. Oquendo (31-7, 19 KOs) was docked a point at the end of the 5th round because headbutt, which injured Herring’s right eye.
The referee Tony Weeks wasn’t going to let the 37-year-old Oquendo get away with the clash of heads, so he took a point away.
In the third round, Herring dropped Oquendo with a big shot. It was a nice uppercut that planted the fringe contender Oquendo on the canvas temporarily. He got up and was able to finish out the round.
All in all, it was a good performance from Herring in gutting it out in defeating the over-matched and highly disparate Oquendo. You can argue that Top Rank should have selected a better opponent for Herring to fight than Oquendo because it was a mismatch from start to finish.
“We knew coming in that he was going to be aggressive with the head first on the inside,” said Herring after the fight. “But it just kept repeating and [referee] Tony finally caught on to it, but I didn’t want to win like that.
“I was cool. I could see out of one eye. I’ve been there in the past, fighting with one eye, so that’s not a problem. My team thought it was too much, so they had to stop it.
“It got ugly. I wasn’t too satisfied with my performance, to be honest. In the beginning, things were going real smooth with me boxing. I put him down with an uppercut. We knew he was going to come in head first, so we had to time him.”
“But in the end, I wasn’t happy. I’m disappointed with the outcome. I’ve been in that situation that was worse, but I’ve never been in a situation where we had to stop a fight. It’s not just about getting a win.
“It’s about how you look. I’m very hard on myself. Bob [Arum] spoke to me and told me to get some rest. As you guys know, I’ve been through a 20-week training camp.”
‘I can go home to my family. Hopefully, the cut isn’t bad. I still want to fight Carl Frampton next by all means. November or December, I still want that fight next. Physically, I felt good. I know he was trying to outwork me.
‘I know he probably thought because of the virus [that he wasn’t 100%]. In terms of conditioning, it was good. I wasn’t huffing or puffin and things like that.
“It just got too ugly and messy. In the second half, it just felt bad in the second half,” said Herring.
Top Rank could have found someone a little more qualified without worrying about Herring losing. Oquendo was recently beaten two fights ago by Lamont Roach last year in May 2019.
Roach defeated Oquendo by a one-side 10 round unanimous decision. In the 8th round of that fight, Oquendo was penalized a point for headbutting.
Top Rank knew what they were getting Herring into by selecting the headbutting Oquendo as his opponent rather than a fighter that could be counted on to keep it clean.
Hopefully, their decision to match Herring against him doesn’t come back to haunt Top Rank due to the cut that Herring suffered.
With the win, Herring moves on to face former two-division world champion Carl Frampton next. Frampton is also promoted by Top Rank, and he’s ranked #8 by the World Boxing Organization.
Although there are more talented contenders in the 130-lb division than Frampton, he’s popular and well-known, so that makes him a good option for Herring. Moreover, Frampton is promoted by Top Rank, so that makes it easy for them to match him against Herring without the need to deal with another promoter.
U.S boxing fans are less interested in seeing Herring fight Frampton. They’d rather see Herring face Shakur Stevenson, Miguel Berchelt, Oscar Valdez, Leo Santa Cruz, or Gervonta’ Tank’ Davis.
Those are more talented than Herring in this writer’s view, and that would be far more appealing to U.S fans to see Herring face one of those guys.
