Vazquez dominates Gesta
By Bill Center
Photo Credit: K.C. Alfred
Source Doc: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/dec/08/vazquez-dominates-gesta-san-diegans-first-title-fi/
LAS VEGAS — Mercito Gesta didn’t get a title Saturday night.
But he did get a lesson.
Mexico’s Miguel Angel Vazquez easily out-classed Gesta to successfully defend his International Boxing Federation lightweight title on the undercard of the fourth Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Vazquez scored a unanimous decision. The only surprise was that one judge gave Gesta three rounds. The Spring Valley resident won two rounds on another card and one round on the third.
Some observers at ringside had Vazquez winning every round while others gave him only the ninth and/or 10th rounds.
Vazquez never hurt Gesta. In fact, Gesta might have had the two best punches of the fight, a pair of hard rights thrown in a 15-second span of the ninth round.
But although both fighters are 25 years old, Vazquez worked like a veteran champion while Gesta appeared inexperienced in just his 28th boxing match. The former Muay Thai kick boxer from The Philippines never boxed as an amateur while Vazquez had more than a hundred amateur fights before turning pro.
The inexperience cost Gesta, who has boxed out of San Diego since 2007. He was unable to stop the unorthodox Vazquez from counter-punching while relentlessly circling to his left.
“He was so awkward in the ring,” Gesta said of Vazquez. “I never got my rhythm going.”
“Cut him off, force the action,” Gesta’s trainer Vince Parra said between many of the early rounds. “Don’t let him frustrate you. Don’t play his game.”
But he did.
“Vazquez runs away,” Gesta said days before his first title fight. “I plan to slow him down, cut off the ring and get inside and work the body when I can. I can’t let him stay on the move.”
Vazquez was never slowed. He was never cut off. And Gesta never worked the body.
“The game plan was to move and box and it went perfectly,” said Vazquez of Guadalajara, Mexico.
Gesta landed only 61 punches over 12 rounds. He did pick up the pace after landing only 13 punches in the first five rounds. Most of the rights Gesta threw with the intent of cutting off Vazquez’s circling missed. And he was never able to close with his jab on Vazquez, who at 5-foot-10 had a three-inch advantage in height and reach.
Gesta landed just 18 percent of the punches he threw. Vazquez landed 195 of 616 punches – or 11 more punches on average per three-minute round. Vazquez had a 99-punch edge in the first three rounds as he piled up points with a quick if not overly powerful left hand.
The loss was Gesta’s first in 28 fights. He had won nine of his last 11 fights by knockout. But aside from the two solid rights in the ninth, Gesta had little for Vazquez, who improved to 25-3 while extending his reign of the IBF’s 135-pound class to three years.
All three judges – John McKaie, Patricia Morse Jarman and C.J. Ross – gave Gesta the 10th round as Vazquez, probably knowing he had the fight won, circled and clinched after taking the two hard rights late in the ninth. McKaie and Ross also gave Gesta the ninth while McKaie also scored the seventh in favor of Gesta.
Before Gesta’s late – and subdued – rally, Vazquez changed strategies in the eighth and closed on Gesta as though to show the San Diegan he could win playing Gesta’s game as well as his own. But after the ninth, Vazquez returned to circling.
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