Rau’shee Warren vs. Juan Carlos Payano results

By Boxing News - 06/18/2016 - Comments

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By Jim Dower: #12 WBA Rau’shee Warren (14-1, 4 KOs) defeated WBA World bantamweight champion Juan Carlos Payano (17-1, 8 KOs) by a narrow 12 round majority decision on Saturday night to capture the WBA 118lb title on Premier Boxing Champions on NBC from the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The final judges’ scores were 114-114, 115-113 and 115-113. Boxing News 24 scored it eight rounds to four for Payano.

The 29-year-old Warren got off to fast starts in each round, but then fad and get outworked in the last minute to two minutes of each round by Payano. The judges were more impressed by Warren’s quick starts rather than the hard work Payano was doing.

This was a fight that was hard to score, because Payano threw far more punches than Warren. Payano worked harder than Warren in every round pretty much. It came down to whether you thought Warren’s six or seven clean landing pot shots were worth more than the 30 to 40 hard punches he was hit by Payano in each round. Speaking for myself, I couldn’t give Warren rounds where he just worked hard for the first minute of the round, and then spent the remaining two minutes holding Payano on the inside and circling around the ring. That kind of fighting looked like a giant stall by Warren.

It was like watching a college basketball team going into a stall to run out the clock on the game so that other team couldn’t score. Usually the fighters that don’t want to work hard for a full three minutes of each round do very little in the first two minutes of the round, and then come on strong to steal the round by working hard in the last minute. The judges tend to be more influenced by what they see last rather than what they see initially.

This tactic works much of the time. But with Warren, he was attacking in the first minute, and then using the last two minutes of each round to run and hold. If I was judging the fight, I wouldn’t have given Warren the victory because he was using a lazy approach to the fight. He wasn’t working hard for the full three minutes. It always just Warren fighting hard for the first minute and then coasting after that while taking huge shots to the head.

Warren avenged his 12 round split decision loss to Payano from last August. Tonight’s fight was fought a lot cleaner with far fewer fouling than their previous fight.

Warren spoke of wanting to fight the other champions at bantamweight. I don’t think it would be a good idea for Warren to do that. because I can’t see him beating the likes of Shinsuke Yamanaka or Jamie McDonnell with his minimalist fighting style. For Warren to face those guys in unification matches, he would likely need to travel to Japan or the UK to make the fights happen. I don’t think the judges will be impressed with Warren fighting hard for the first minute of every round and then just holding and moving for the last two minutes. Shinsuke and McDonnell are fighters that work hard for the full three minutes of each round. They’re going to make it tough for Warren to win rounds if he’s not going to put in effort for the entire round.