...how good is Luis Nery?

Pantera is the new WBC champ at bantam as of yesterday, dethroning longtime king Shinsuke Yamanaka by KO. The hard-punching Mexican southpaw is now 24-0 (18).

Now, it had occurred to me that Yamanaka was perhaps holding his hand a little too close to the fire if he lingered much longer in the game, rapidly approaching his 35th birthday (historically a signpost of "you're too damn old!" for anyone in this weight range except maybe the great Omar Andrés Narváez), and it doesn't come as much of a surprise that he lost his title and with it his zero to an undefeated knockout artist who cut his teeth on the domestic scene in Mexico, which produces a large concentration of the elite talent in this weight range - but, I never thought Yamanaka would be upset by somebody completely unknown to me. That's largely my fault, as Nery's rise has coincided with me taking a step away from the sport over the last year or so, but still. His record before this crack at Yamanaka was decent and everything, but there was nothing on paper to suggest he was definitely going to hang with the elite. Of course, the eye test matters a lot in boxing, and those who saw Nery might have anticipated his defeat of Yamanaka. I, however, managed to somehow never see Nery before. Just poking through BoxRec looking at every single card he fought on for the last couple of years, and comparing with my list of RBR threads (and even searching for posts I made in other people's threads), he just happened to have never crossed the path of my viewing habits.

So, for anyone that had caught a gander or several of him before twenty hours ago, was this a fluke where Yamanaka declined overnight and would've lost to anybody halfway decent with a remotely bad style for him, or is Nery a worthy successor?

 

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Damn. Well, okay. Shin looked pretty much himself early in the 1st, and then just got increasingly uncomfortable, whether it was facing a fellow southpaw, or feeling the power, or Nery's tricky defensive footwork & upper body movement for a stalker-puncher. Kid just broke him down.

Interesting to note that Eduardo Lamazón of Azteca (sort of like Mexico's version of Harold Lederman, but with a probably superior reputation, usually fair in his scoring even when a countryman is facing a foreigner) gave the challenger two of the completed three rounds, including the relatively close first, but not a clean sweep. Lamazón saw Yamanaka staging a brief comeback in R3, despite Nery landing some huge bombs on him. Yamanaka did assert himself in that stanza, making some physical contact with his always snappy right jab, but most of it was glancing oblique contact on the side of the head, with the Mexican weaving side to side. The former champ did make Nery miss a few lunging hooks, and had a late surge of heavy 1-2s, but most were blocked. I personally saw it a whitewash, 30-27 for Pantera before the stoppage.

 

Saguilán is someone I have definitely seen before. I'm going to go out right now on a limb and say the smaller Nery is a tad better pound for pound.

 

I have never seen Davey move his upper body or head as well as Nery did versus Left God. (whom, sadly, I don't see making a successful return. Not taking any credit away from Luis, but this was a huge confidence-shattering loss, the kind it takes a few years to rebound from, and Yama simply has too much on the odometer...)

 

Yeah, especially with this being a big step up for him and that last impression he left, as CST mentioned, of getting dropped by the inferior Tabugon.

 

Oh wow, just looked at the RBR thread and was shocked to see that everybody had Yamanaka up (some by three zip!) before the KO.