"Boxing After Dark"
In HBO's second installment of "Boxing After Dark" this year, Jhonny Gonzalez outpointed Fernando Montiel to retain his WBO bantamweight title. In the co-featured bout between two unbeaten prospects, Paul "The Punisher" Williams stopped Walter Matthysse in the tenth round. This fight card was featured at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.
Fighting for the opportunity to face bantamweight kingpin Rafael Marquez, Jhonny Gonzalez defeated Fernando Montiel by split decision. It was a tactical fight that was devoid of sustained action, yet both fighters displayed a great deal of technical skill and professionalism. However, in boxing the big punch sells and neither man helped his marketability to great benefit. Jhonny Gonzalez, of Mexico City, retains his WBO Bantamweight title and raises his record to 33-4 (28 KOs), while Montiel, Los Mochis, Mexico, falls to 32-2-1 (24 KOs).
In the seventh and eighth rounds, boos from the crowd started to come in at a sustained fashion for the first time in the fight. The HBO commentators were trying to hype the action up with verbiage, but there was no mistaking the dullness of the combat. However, in the middle of the tactical foot war, Montiel landed his best punch of the fight with an overhand right that landed on Gonzalez just before the end of the eighth round. Gonzalez once again resumed his role as aggressor in the ninth, pressing forward and landing a couple of body shots here and there.
The tactical boxing match continued into the tenth round, with Montiel countering infrequently and Gonzalez unable to land devastating blows on his elusive foe. Midway through the round, Montiel slipped as a consequence of the perspiration that had accumulated on the paint in the middle of the ring. That was one of the more memorable moments of the fight. In the eleventh round, Montiel realized that he would need to become more aggressive and started to come forward. While he did pick up his work rate, he was unable to get any effective scoring done. Montiel came out for the twelfth round flurrying and moving, and seemed to win the first 2:30 of the stanza. With 15 seconds left in the fight, Montiel raised his hands in celebration prematurely, allowing Gonzalez to step in and land some effective punches and possibly steal the round.
The official judges' scorecards at the end of the fight read as a split decision win for Gonzalez, with two cards reading 118-111 and 116-112. Those tallies over-ruled the 115-113 card that had Montiel victorious. Montiel will now probably have to return to the super flyweight division to rebuild after this loss.
As for Gonzalez, he now stands as the most viable challenger to bantamweight champion Rafael Marquez. This fight would be a very exciting fight with two fighters who are offensive minded. I would pick Marquez in this one, however, as Marquez's big punch and speed advantages are hard to argue against.
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