World Boxing Council World super flyweight champion Carlos “Principe” Cuadras (35-1-1, 27 KOs) wasn’t too happy at losing his WBC 115lb belt to unbeaten pound-for-pound star Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, (46-0-0, 38 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision last Saturday night at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The hulking Cuadras, who looked like a featherweight in the ring last Saturday, claimed that he should have been given the decision by the judges.
The judges scored the fight 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113. I had Gonzalez winning eight rounds to four. I couldn’t give Cuadras many of the later rounds of the fight because he looked like he was tired and unable to stand and fight the smaller Gonzalez.
Cuadras would start each round by throwing a flurry of wide shots that would miss badly. Cuadras would then get on his bike and run around the ring trying to avoid Gonzalez. Each time Gonzalez would catch up to Cuadras, he would be grabbed in a clinch. It worked for Cuadras to keep Gonzalez from throwing punches, but it was unmistakable seeing that he wasn’t fighting. He was just trying to keep from getting hit. The referee should have taken points away from Cuadras for the holding because it excessive.
The judges didn’t see it that way though, as they didn’t appear interested in giving rounds to a fighter who was running and holding the entire second of the fight. Cuadras, as big as he was last night, blew his chance of winning by failing to stand and fight Gonzalez. It was really strange. Cuadras looked like he two divisions larger than Gonzalez, and much stronger, and yet he wouldn’t stand and fight the Nicaraguan warrior.
The image of the much larger Cuadras running from Gonzalez was hard to ignore, because it was so there and so odd looking. You don’t normally get fighters that are bigger, stronger, taller and younger running from their smaller opponents. That’s what Cuadras was doing last Saturday night.
“It was close but I think I won, he’s never been hit that much in his career, just look at his face,” said Cuadras. “He is relentless; he didn’t get tired all night. His defense was better than I expected. He was stopping my shots with his arms and coming right back with his own punches.”
Cuadras really worked over Gonzalez’s face with his heavy shots. Gonzalez looked like another person entirely by the end of the fight, as his face was so badly swollen on the right side from Cuadras’ powerful left hooks he was throwing. It’s scary to think what Cuadras would have done to Gonzalez if he just glued his feet to the canvas fought him like a warrior.
It was the wrong style from Cuadras last night for him to beat a talented fighter like Gonzalez. Instead of running and holding Gonzalez all night long, Cuadras needed to fight him like the Mexican greats from the past like Julio Cesar Chavez. You wouldn’t have seen Chavez running from Gonzalez last Saturday. He would have stalked him around the ring and tried to beat him with his punching power.
Cuadras’ trainer should have recognized that he was using the wrong approach last night and made some adjustments. Cuadras shouldn’t have been holding and he definitely should have not been running from Gonzalez, because that was stupid. You don’t run from a pound-for-pound fighter like Gonzalez unless you want to lose. In hindsight, Cuadras and his team got it wrong. I guess they thought running and holding would work against Gonzalez. It didn’t work and now Cuadras appears to be in denial about his loss. He needs to face reality. His running and holding caused him to lose the fight. The judges didn’t blow it. He blew it by using the wrong game plan to beat a Gonzalez.
It doesn’t matter that Cuadras’ face wasn’t swollen up like Gonzalez’s. The fact of the matter is that Cuadras was getting nailed and was running from the battle, and that looked bad in my eyes and like in the eyes of boxing fans. If Cuadras wants to win his WBC title back, then he’s going to need to get back in line and wait for Gonzalez to get done with fights against guys like WBO champion Naoya Inoue.
