Alfonso Gomez vs. Yoshihiro Kamegai

You all realize this could well become the frontrunner as the FOTY so far, right?

This is a lousy week for the sport (really you have this headlining a Fox Sports 1 card on Friday with no competition from ESPN2 FNF or ShoBox, and then Brähmer vs. Krasniqi on Saturday afternoon and that is really it) but this has the makings of a gem.

The winner is barely a top 30 welterweight, but as with last weekend's Berto vs. Lopez match-up, big-picture relevance isn't really the point. These guys' styles are even more predisposed to yield a combustible war than Berto's and Lopez's were, on paper.

The Gomez and Kamegai are on not dissimilar tiers and both are suckers for a brawl. :bbb

 

I see it going ten but I'm wary of cuts. :think

 

I think Kamegai has the better dig and stronger chin but Gomez is more skilled and crafty, balancing it out.

 

Ronny Rios and Jamie Kavanah in the co-features are in with soft touches in showcases, but they are both capable of fighting down to an opponent's level and making harder work of it than needed (both have in fact made a regular habit of doing just that).

So we might get a top-down competitive & action-packed card, but more than likely the main event will be light years ahead of the rest of it.

 

Odds are out. Kamegai is a fairly comfortable favorite, shockingly.

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=531797

 

Well...that wasn't all he ever accomplished.

He knocked out Carson Jones, defeated Jesse Brinkley (a natural super middle, whereas Gomez is a medium-sized welter...and they fought at MW - the same Brinkley who later schooled Curtis Stevens), split a pair with Peter Manfredo (another super middleweight fringe contender, like Brinkley), and had a trilogy with Jesse Feliciano. He also beat the holy hell out of Jesus Soto Karass - back when JSK had only 3 prior defeats, and smack in the middle of a run of improving form and very shortly before he exposed Mike Jones and lost a robbery MD in their first encounter. Two fights ago he gave the very hyped Shawn Porter absolute hell, and in his last outing he beat a good solid welterweight in Paredes.

Honestly each of those is better than any wins Kamegai has.

Both he and Kamegai are B-level guys who even on their best night will probably never cleanly beat a legit prime elite, but they're both hard triers who bring lots intangibles to the table.

 

I was actually thinking that!

I wanted to bet a little more on Gomez than I did, but this just looks so pretty.

 

Luckily Gomez came through - I think from now on I'm never going to dip below 50k, just going to use by Gomez earnings to seed all my future bets.