the what fights did you watch today\scorecard thread.

Not especially from what I remember. Weird ending though.

 

Rafael Herrera SD12 Chucho Castillo

This is a great wee scrap. The first clinch between the two is in the twelfth round, and although it takes a couple of rounds to boil up, when it reaches melting point we really have a cracking fight on our hands. It's rare to see such a wonderful fight between two guys who respect each other so much, and by round 10 they've pretty much feinted and punched each other into knots, but duke it out anyway with the fight perhaps in the balance.

Castillo dominates the first two rounds with his left hand. It's a lovely weapon, and for a while he boxes with it on a par with Kenny Buchanan or somebody like that, tossing in a beautiful short hook, not a full-blooded punch but neither is it a jab, and that's the shot he uses to dominate the first - switching to the jab in round 2. Herrera succeeds in taking this punch away from him though, with his own jab and a slight advantage in handspeed - his punches also look slightly shorter and crisper generally, nipping in often before Castillo can execute his own punch. There's absolutely no pawing though, it's a thudding weapon, and i'm surprised Castillo wasn't more busted up by this punch at the end of the fight, it watched like Chucho should have been more heavily marked up. As well as using his own jab to throw of Castillo, Herrera lands with frightening economy in the third, and Castillo looks a little unsure. For a spell of maybe 90 seconds, Herrera lands everything he throws and he has his opponents guessing. Generally the more economical man throughout, round three (also one of the fight's crucial inflection points) is in some ways his pinnacle.

Herrera adds dimensions in the fourth, winning it with aggression and short bodypunches, but he also shows a lovely radar, slipping back and adding excellent upper body and head movement to take the sting out of most of Castillo's good work. There's a real ebb and flow to this fight, and this is a round where Herrera excels at making his opponent miss, generally landing his own best shots.

His domination continues into the sixth, and Castillo looks worn out at the end of this one, but he is fighting back at the bell and again at the beginning of the seventh. By now, Herrera has nicked his jab from him, and he also gave a clinic on ditching the right, putting shoulder and glove between that punch as well as slipping and sliding to reduce impact and make his man miss altogether often. It's a clinic in regards defending the the right hand.

Castillo has problems then, and starts to try to bring Herrera on in the 8th. I love this sort of thing, these little shifts that have a seismic affect on the fight. Castillo is having more luck, but his shift gives free reign to Herrera's aggression. It leads to a really weird situation where Herrera looks less sure and lands less, but Castillo, hit up and a little tired just doesn't throw enough punches to take the rounds. If he was busier in these rounds he could have won the fight, I think. Castillo digs in again though, in nine, and starts landing his left hooks once more, often as the counter-puncher, to win his first round since the second. Castillo then goes back into the pocket, which I think might have been because he felt he was losing the fight, but that perhaps Herrera was starting to feel the pace (which is high from round 3 on, especially in the fourth).

The eleventh is a hard round and a hard round to score. I thought Castillo perhaps just, just out-fought his rival, though I could see this one appearing any one of three ways on a card. Chucho had the round in the bag for me, but looked disorganised and got tagged in the last minute, arguably evening things up. Castillo has generally had to work harder throughout to land his stuff, thrusting himself forwards or feinting and dipping to get his punches home. Herrera on the other hand has success with every punch in the book, man of them the harder shots, and when he does get into trouble, he goes back to his jab, which I think is his best shot. Both men show real art in their boxing.

I couldn't seperate them in the twelfth making my card 6-5-1 to Herrera. Offical cards were 6-5-1 and 7-4-1 to Herrera, both reasonable, and 6-5-1 Castillo, which felt like a reach to me. I admired Castillo's adaptability and bravery perhaps even more than Herrera's domination, but it felt like a Herrera victory. He landed the more hurtful stuff, and seemed to boss the fight, except when Castillo decided to fight what would become his opponents fight, whoever won the individual rounds. Also, Castillo never, ever won a round big, whereas Herrera cleanly won a handful.

But a great, great bantamweight scrap between two really excellent super-tough craftsmen.


HERRERA: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

CASTILLO: 1,2,9,10,11

EVEN: 12

 

GP, there will be mistakes/oversights and exaggerations in my write up, but one thing I can promise you is that you will ****ing love this fight. Everything you love in the fights is right there in these 12 rounds.

Also, there's loads of really interesting stuff i've left out, like the way Herrera seems to box to the cards towards the end, trying to get a "lead" on points and then not take any more risks (in a muted sense - nothing dramatic). It all affects the ebb and flow so much, but these are just marginal decisions sometimes. And then out of nothing they fight a war in a round (4 & 12).