LUIS CARLOS ABREGU vs IRVING GARCIA

Argentina’s unbeaten welterweight Luis Carlos Abregu wasn’t too impressive in his ShoBox debut in December when he had to survive a very shaky last round in winning a split 10-round decision over the tough David Estrada. On Friday, Abregu is back in the main event on ShoBox and he faces another stiff test in Irving Garcia, the competent and accurate-punching Puerto Rican.

Abregu is 26, he has won 26 consecutive fights, and if he is to move to a higher level he must be able to beat the fringe-contender, Irving Garcia types.

One thing that struck me about Abregu in the Estrada fight is that he didn’t seem anything like the puncher that his record suggests. Estrada’s durability is well known, but Abregu couldn’t seem to make any impression on him at all. Indeed the gritty Estrada was inviting Abregu to stand and fight when the Argentinean got on his bicycle in the later stages. The 10th round was a rout, and had this been a 12-rounder I think that Abregu might have been unable to make it to the finish.

Abregu got the win, but it was a close call. (Here I should mention that although two judges’ scores appear in the records as being wide in Abregu’s favour, my informant on site tells me that one judge mistakenly marked the last round as being 10-8 in Abregu’s favour instead of 10-8 in favour of Estrada. The human error didn’t affect the result but one of the wide scores in Abregu’s favour is really four points closer than the records show.)

Perhaps Abregu will have learned from that fight. He might have burned up too much energy, too soon, against Estrada, and I understand that Abregu’s southern California trainer, Abel Sanchez, wants him to take his time, concentrate more on his boxing and not think about a KO, which suggests a long, tactical boxing match against Garcia.

Abregu boxed well in the early rounds against Estrada, and his hand speed was quite good, but he didn’t look comfortable under pressure in the second half of the fight and I was surprised how easy it was for Estrada to hit him with right hands. Garcia, 30, isn’t known as a very hard puncher but he has solid technical boxing skills, with a stiff jab and a crisp right hand. Three head-clash technical draws could all have been wins had collisions not occurred, especially the fight with Albuquerque’s game slugger Hector Munoz, who was taking a lot of shots when a severe cut over his eye allowed him to escape with the TD under Puerto Rican rules even though the bout lasted only two rounds.

Two of Garcia’s losses were against junior middleweights, one of them a very close defeat on points. His only loss as a welterweight, the second-round stoppage against Said Ouali, came when Garcia was doing well only to get caught by a big right hook from the Syrian southpaw. Garcia never got over that punch, but he is unbeaten in five fights since that setback, and he looked sharp against Hector Munoz and again in his last fight when he comfortably outscored the always tough Chris Smith.

I am expecting an entertaining, well-contested fight on Friday but I think that Abregu might have the advantage. He seems to be slightly the better puncher, maybe a bit quicker, and I do have a feeling that he will improve from the rather disappointing performance against Estrada. Part of Abregu’s problem against Estrada was that he was in with a robust aggressor who simply wouldn’t leave him alone as the fight went into the later stages. Garcia is more of a technician, and I think that this will give Abregu the room to box that Estrada denied him. I’ll go with Abregu, then, and, as his last two bouts went 10 rounds, a full-distance fight seems likely, but, of course, one never knows, especially considering Garcia’s history of head-clash endings.