By Jim Dower: Undefeated #12 WBO middleweight contender Maciej Sulecki (23-0, 8 KOs) stayed unbeaten with an impressive 10th round knockout victory over previously undefeated #6 WBO Hugo Centeno Jr. (24-1, 12 KOs) on Saturday night at the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
The 27-year-old Sulecki knocked Centeno Jr. down with a jab followed by a big right hand in the 10th. A badly hurt and bleeding Centeno Jr. got back to his feet, but referee Mark Nelson chose to stop the fight after seeing how hurt Centeno Jr. was. The time of the stoppage was at 1:06 of the 10th. By that point in the fight, Centeno Jr. was bleeding from his right eye and a bloody nose. His left eye was bruised from the many shots that Sulecki had nailed him with.
Centeno began to look discouraged by the 6th round. He was no longer fighting with the same kind of energy that he had in the first three rounds, and it appeared that he wasn’t trying to win the fight any longer.
In the 7th, Centeno Jr. threw a left hook that hit the referee Mark Nelson on the jaw. Nelson took the punch without going down. Sulecki opened his mouth in shock at seeing the referee get nailed.
Centeno Jr. fought well throughout the fight. His main problem, besides Sulecki being a better overall fighter, was his lack of punching power. Centeno Jr. didn’t have the pop in his shots for him to hurt Sulecki and stop his forward motion.
Centeno Jr. was able to load up occasionally with right hands and left hooks to slow up Sulecki’s progress in coming forward. However, Centeno Jr. wasn’t able to throw enough of those power shots to keep Sulecki off of him. Centeno Jr. is going to need to work his power in the future if he wants to do anything in the 160lb division. Centeno’s other major problem was he was fighting his lead left arm down by his side. This style is fine if you’ve got the fast reflexes to move the arm up to block shots or if you’re quick enough to lean away from shots the way that guys like Floyd Mayweather does. Centeno Jr. is not fast, and his low guard was causing him to get continually hit by Sulecki in the fight. Centeno Jr’s trainer should have told him to get his guard up because he was getting too frequently in the fight, and a large part of that was because he had his guard down. This glaring flaw in Centeno’s game should have been changed a long time ago, because he’s been using that style for a while now. He’s clearly not fast enough to be fighting with his lead arm down by his waist. If I was Centeno’s trainer, I would have fixed this problem on day one because he can’t go through his career fighting like this if he wants to have any kind of real success.
Sulecki looks like someone who could be a major player in the middleweight division. I don’t think Sulecki will ever be able to defeat guys like Gennady Golovkin, but I think he could give problems to the other top middleweights like Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Chris Eubank Jr. I wouldn’t be surprised if he beat some of those fighters because he’s a very solid middleweight with excellent boxing skills and decent power.