Jesus Cuellar (R) of Argentina punches Jonathan Oquendo of Puerto Rico during their WBA Featherweight Championship bout. (Getty)
Jesus Cuellar successfully retained his WBA World featherweight title on Saturday by outpointing Jonathan Oquendo at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
After 12 rounds of brisk action, the three ringside judges handed out a unanimous decision win to Jesus Cuellar (28-1, 21 KOs), their scorecards reading: 116-111, 116-111, and 120-107. Oquendo Jonathan Oquendo (26-5, 16 KOs) had a knockdown counted against him in the fourth round, although replays showed he tripped over Cuellar’s leg.
In a high paced encounter peppered with good exchanges, Cuellar took the role of aggressor from the opening round, pressuring Oquendo around the ring for the majority of the match and getting off with jabs, straight lefts, and combinations; while Oquendo spent most of the fight on his back foot, attempting to change the direction of the action, and trying countering off the southpaw’s advances.
Oquendo made a good account of himself, landing his straight rights with power and succeeding at times to implement what seemed to be his game plan of putting Cuellar on the defense.
But Cuellar’s handspeed and ring movement proved to be too much for the game Boricua, as the defending champ took control of the action, using quick upper body motion to get around Oquendo’s jab, and turning him to create angles to land his quick jabs and create opening for combinations and straight lefts. Cuellar established his distance early on in the fight and controlled the action for most of the 12 rounds.
CompuBox had Cuellar landing 237 of his 994 thrown punches, Oquendo landed 167 out of 639.
Watch as Cuellar’s handspeed is too much for the challenger:
Jesus Cuellar, a 28-year-old from Buenos Aires, Argentina with extensive amateur background, entered Saturday’s tango coming off a title defense kayo victory over veteran Vic Darchinyan in June. Prior to facing Darchinyan, Cuellar had stopped Ruben Tamayo in five rounds in December of last year, and Juan Manuel Lopez in September of last year.
Jonathan Oquendo, a 32-year-old fighting out of Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, was making his New York City debut on Saturday. Oquendo scored a majority decision win over Jhonny Gonzalez in September, which followed a victory over Gabino Cota in March and a defeat at the hands of Abner Mares in July of 2014. Oquendo holds wins over Joe Luis Araiza, Eden Sonsona, Alejandro Montiel and up-and-comer Guillermo Avila.