Cesar Juarez’s adviser, Sean Gibbon has stated that his charge deserved a second chance against Ghana’s Isaac Dogboe.
Dogboe stopped the Mexican in round five last Saturday at the Bukom Boxing Arena to win the interim WBO World super bantamweight.
While Gibbons was complimentary toward the new champion on a “great performance,” he was clearly frustrated at the stoppage, in a fight he felt would have looked much different if it had reached the later rounds.
Dogboe came out fast and hard at Juarez, who caught as much as he threw in the first two rounds, a typical day at the office for Juarez. Then Dogboe caught Juarez with a left hook that dropped him. Dogboe poured on the attack for the remainder of the round but a determined Juarez weathered the storm and survived.
Juarez seemed to recover well and stood toe-to-toe with Dogboe through rounds three and four. By the midway point of round three, and through much of round four, Juarez seemed to be on the attack and backing Dogboe up.
Juarez came out in round five and was firing from all angles, however, a perfectly-timed, sweeping left hook floored him again. Juarez rose at the count of four and seemed ready to continue, when referee Tony Weeks waved off the fight. Juarez argued that he was fine and seemed understandably frustrated by the stoppage.
However, Gibbons in an interview with UCNLive.com said, “I’m just really frustrated at the stoppage,” said an animated Gibbons. “I mean, if you have ever seen Juarez fight, and the style that he fights, he does get dropped sometimes in fights. He swarms in and is a very offensive fighter but, if you look at the history of some of his biggest wins, he typically comes back much later in the fight and will have his strongest rounds. I don’t know if Tony got spooked by Juarez’s style or what but that fight should have been allowed to continue.”
While Gibbons was unhappy with the outcome, he insists he doesn’t want to take anything away from Dogboe’s win.
“Listen, I want to be clear: This isn’t sour grapes. All the credit in the world to Dogboe, who is a great, young fighter. He fought a very good fight and I give him all the credit in the world. The venue, the people of Accra, just beautiful, wonderful people and a great boxing country,” said Gibbons, “but, c’mon; if you know anything about Juarez, you know how this is how he fights. You know his style. He may get knocked down. Some of his best performances were after knockdowns. You have to know the fighter. He gets up at the count of four and the referee doesn’t ask him to step to him, doesn’t ask him if he’s OK, doesn’t seem to make any moves to see if he can continue. He just waves it off. This is a world title fight. It is very hard for a fighter to work himself into a position to get to compete for a world title; those opportunities don’t come along everyday. I’m just very disappointed and frustrated with the stoppage. Cesar deserved a chance to continue in that fight.”