By WBCnews
At the Palenque Vicente Fernandez in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico WBC featherweight Silver champion Cristian Mijares (55-8-2, 26 KOs) pondered and lumbered to a lacklustre UD over younger, fitter, game and previously undefeated Shohei Kawashima (14-1-2, 3 KOs) from Japan.
The fight was scored 115-113 by all three judges. With the victory Mijares retains his WBC silver featherweight belt.
Appearing decidedly fleshy around the hips and content to fight at a very sedate pace, Cristian was worlds apart from the keen, inspired, sharp and hungry performance in winning the belt against Andres “Jaguar” Gutierrez, as recently as June 4th.
Relying on his vast experience, he transformed the first half of the fight into a neutral pace, sluggish sparring session, which was surprisingly disappointing, in front of his home crowd, who`s waited years to see their favorite son. Kawashima who at twenty four is eleven years younger, has only inflicted three KO`s. But as the fight wore on, he noticeably gained confidence and threw appreciably more right hands that landed. After round seven this paid dividends, opening a long, deep gash just above Cristian`s left eyebrow.
finally and belatedly Cristian started landing solid rocking left hooks in round ten followed by fast right left combinations and an impressive clip of uppercuts in the eleventh, but then puzzlingly chose to dance and move away, rather than engage toe to toe. Cristian`s world class level experience proved the edge in a surprisingly close fight. After the final bell clanged Shohei bowed to all four segments of the crowed, who sportingly applauded a spirited performance.
In the co-feature, former IBF champion Francisco Rodriguez (20-4-1, 13 KOs) stopped Crison Omayao (20-13-3, 7KOs) in in five rounds. Omayao went down three times.
The fight was scored 115-113 by all three judges. With the victory Mijares retains his WBC silver featherweight belt.
Appearing decidedly fleshy around the hips and content to fight at a very sedate pace, Cristian was worlds apart from the keen, inspired, sharp and hungry performance in winning the belt against Andres “Jaguar” Gutierrez, as recently as June 4th.
Relying on his vast experience, he transformed the first half of the fight into a neutral pace, sluggish sparring session, which was surprisingly disappointing, in front of his home crowd, who`s waited years to see their favorite son. Kawashima who at twenty four is eleven years younger, has only inflicted three KO`s. But as the fight wore on, he noticeably gained confidence and threw appreciably more right hands that landed. After round seven this paid dividends, opening a long, deep gash just above Cristian`s left eyebrow.
finally and belatedly Cristian started landing solid rocking left hooks in round ten followed by fast right left combinations and an impressive clip of uppercuts in the eleventh, but then puzzlingly chose to dance and move away, rather than engage toe to toe. Cristian`s world class level experience proved the edge in a surprisingly close fight. After the final bell clanged Shohei bowed to all four segments of the crowed, who sportingly applauded a spirited performance.
In the co-feature, former IBF champion Francisco Rodriguez (20-4-1, 13 KOs) stopped Crison Omayao (20-13-3, 7KOs) in in five rounds. Omayao went down three times.
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