By Manuel Perez: World Boxing Association featherweight Chris John (42-0-1, 22 KOs) will be defending his WBA title in a 12-round bout on February 28th against Rocky Juarez (28-4, 20 KOs) at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. John, 29, is making a rare appearance out of his home country of Indonesia, is taking a big risk in traveling to Texas to take on Juarez, who comes from Texas and will have a huge crowd advantage going for him.
However, John, the WBA champion since defeating Juan Manuel Marquez in a controversial 12-round decision in March 2006, perhaps feels confident after seeing that Juarez has lost three out of his last six fights and hasn’t been very impressive. John, though, was hardly impressive himself in winning the title against Marquez, a fight which I had Marquez winning seven rounds to three with two rounds even.
John looked good at times in the first half of the fight, landing with fast combinations and showing good hand speed. Marquez, though, took over after the 4th round and basically bullied the slender John for the remainder of the fight, knocking him off balance with power shots and making it seem as if he was fighting a fighter much smaller than himself.
Before long, John became reluctant to mix it up with Marquez, instead staying on the outside and throwing jabs and a rare combination. Marquez continued to blast John with right hands and left hooks from rounds four until the twelfth, appearing to easily beat him. In contrast to Juarez’s fight with Marquez, resulting in a 12-round decision loss for Juarez, he fought much better than John had done against Marquez.
As far as boxing skills go, John is an extraordinary fighter with amazing skills, but the problem is that he’s too slight to compete against stronger fighters like Marquez, Oscar Larios, and Steve Luevano. Juarez is clearly not in the same class as far as his skills go, but having fought a lot as a super featherweight in the past two years, Juarez is going to have the size advantage as well as the power advantage against John.
This isn’t going to be a fight where Juarez has to worry about John’s power, because frankly, he has little of that. All Juarez will have to do is push the fight against John and make him fight on the run like he did against Marquez, and the fight will belong to Juarez.
Juarez, a former Silver Medal winner in the 2000 Olympics, has been rushed really quickly with his career, already facing quality fighters like Antonio Diaz by his 17th fight. Juarez, for awhile, responded well, beating excellent fighters like Hector Velazquez, Guty Espadas and Zahir Raheem, before losing a close decision to Humberto Soto in 2005. Juarez would then lose a controversial 12-round split decision to Marco Antonio Barrera in May 2006.
I personally had Juarez winning that fight by two rounds on my scorecards. Other fans and writers also felt that Juarez should have been given the decision in that fight. Thankfully, Barrera and Juarez met again in a rematch four months later in September 2006, with Barrera this time appearing to win in a much more convincing manner than last time. Juarez would then next lose to Marquez in November 2007, losing by a 12-round decision in a fight where Juarez seemed to be unable to pull the trigger.
In fairness to Juarez, he looked flat, and nothing like he previously looked in other fights. It wasn’t so much about what Marquez was doing in that fight but rather what Juarez wasn’t doing, namely letting his hands go. Juarez is going to have to throw a lot of punches if he expects to have a chance at taking away John’s title, because if he fights passively, then John will stay on the outside and pick him apart with jabs all night long and beat him with ease.