Last night Darley Perez (26-0) extended his undefeated record by taking the 0 of the tough Uzbek Mamadjonov (11-1). They do say ‘a win is a win’ but the nature of this win was very uncertain and Perez will thank his lucky stars he came through victorious. This fight was very close from start to finish and both fighters seemed very able to cause each other problems throughout.
The judges came back split, with one giving it 95-94 in favour of the Uzbek, and the other two with scores of 95-94 and 96-93 for Perez. I personally gave the fight straight down the middle five rounds to five and genuinely had no idea which was the judges would give it, to some degree I was expecting a draw. This is something which I rarely do regardless of how close a bout is, the only thing I had separating the two was a point in Perez’s favour as he scored the knockdown in the 8th.
Mamadjonov shown toughness and resilience which will see him have a good career moving forward despite this setback. He picked good shots and applied good pressure when necessary, rocking Perez in round two. The Uzbek was leading on my card for a good amount of the fight. However, Perez’z stamina held up as he took the last three rounds by landing good effective shots.
It is now I say that as a prospect I do not see Perez reaching the very top of the division without some improvement, he appeared slow in comparison to the likes of Vasquez and Burns against an 11 fight novice. I understand that there is always the one bogey opponent who is just difficult to figure out, but if he is expecting to rub shoulders with the world class fighters then there is work to be done. Nevertheless it was a good, close fight which was worth watching by all accounts.
To conclude, Perez needs to see this bout as a warning sign when progressing. He should maybe take a couple fights to iron out any weaknesses before steamrolling forward to the tougher fights. As far as Mamadjonov is concerned, I do not expect him to ever become a world beater, or even a world title holder, but I see him having a reasonably successful career in the future.
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