By Amy Green

 

Lupe Garcia has been harshly criticized by promoter Gary Shaw and many boxing fans ring side were probably wanting more action after what has been called a premature stoppage in Saturday night’s toe to toe slugfest between Israel Vasquez and Rafael Marquez.

Garcia halted the action with  1:16 to go in the sixth round, with Marquez still defending himself under the heavy fire of Vasquez. Perhaps sensing the fighter’s well being was at jeopardy, Garcia rescued Marquez and Vasquez collected the hotly contested WBC super bantam title.

 

The match up between Celestino Caballero and Jorge Lacierva lacked the precision punching and dramatic action of the main event. 5’11 Caballero and 5’4 Lacierva held, fouled and fought with wild winging shots to the end, all under the alert eyes of referee Laurence Cole. Lacierva proved to be tougher than Caballero anticipated, pressing forward and battling his way to the inside of his taller foe.

Cole did deduct a point from Lacierva in round 6 and remained busy throughout the bout by tapping or even holding onto fighters’ arms, as they were engaged in combinations, instead of properly breaking the fighters, and that effort had little or no effect. Heated exchanges at the end of three different rounds carried over after the bell and Cole struggled to exert his authority and send them to their respective corners.

Cole also failed to notice a ton of behind the head shots from Lacierva and some choice kidney shots. Lacierva’s aggression kept Caballero off his rhythm and he obviously blinded or dazzled Cole with his performance. Caballero stepped it up a little by round eight but that didn’t seem enough to warrant the huge margin of victory.

Judges tallied the event 116-111, 116-110 and 115-112 to give Caballero the unanimous decision. At best, a very low "C" goes to Laurence Cole from my scorecard if the judges were that generous with Caballero.

 

Another minute or so between Vasquez and Marquez may have resulted in a KO but Lupe Garcia preferred to play it safe. Marquez and Vasquez were both bloody and sporting cuts that flowed during the action, which their corners controlled effectively but could have proved problematic in very late rounds.

Prior to the stoppage Garcia never missed a step in observing the ring action nor did his presence hinder the fighters in any way. Controlling the fight and the fighters may not have changed the score cards between Caballero and Lacierva, but Laurence Cole could have made the fight a little less sloppy fight by doing a more effective job as the third man in the ring, instead of appearing a times like a bothersome third party in a pugilistic menage a trois.

For erring on the side of caution and a job well done, a winning nod to Lupe Garcia.