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Munguia Hands “The Pit Bull” Diaz First Career Loss On Undercard
In a major upset, Saul Roman, 24-4 (20), won a difficult split decision over former IBF Junior Middleweight Champion Kassim “The Dream” Ouma, 25-4-1 (15).
In what was apparently supposed to be a stay busy fight for Ouma after his bout with Sergio Mora was called off early this year, “The Dream” failed to re-establish himself at the top of the division.
From the first round Roman brought the fight directly to Ouma, landing hard shots that continuously knocked the former champ off-balance. Roman established his jab early and landed it numerous times in the opening round. Ouma fought back well in the second but Roman continued to pressure him as both men refused to back down, both standing in the center of the ring and firing off their shots.
Ouma continued to stay busy, as he always does, through the middle rounds of the fight, but the rugged and game Roman was taking his shots well and continued to fire back.
Roman trapped Ouma against the ropes late in the fifth round and landed his hardest shots of the night and forcing Ouma to clinch in order to stop the assault.
The eight round saw Ouma land what could be considered a questionable knockdown that should have been ruled a low blow. As Ouma grew more and more frustrated, his punches began to stray lower and lower, until he landed a hard left below the belt that sent Roman to the canvas. The referee was out of position for the punch and ruled the obvious foul a knockdown.
But, knockdown or not, the outcome would have been the same. It was a tough night for Ouma who takes another step backwards and could face a difficult task of getting back to the upper echelon of the division.
For Roman, it was a solid outing by a good veteran and he can only hope to set up a few bigger fights in the future. Before the fight it would have been hard to imagine anyone outworking Ouma for a win, but Roman drew up the blueprint on how its done. The official scores were 96-93 twice for Roman and 95-94 for Ouma.
In the televised undercard, Miguel Munguia, 16-7-1 (13,) scored an upset victory by winning a unanimous decision against the formerly undefeated Jose Diaz, 14-1 (4). Diaz is the younger brother of the lightweight champion Juan Diaz.
It was a tough fight for Diaz, who had a point deducted in the fourth round for excessively spitting out his mouthpiece. Although Diaz attempted to apply the same sort of pressure that his older brother uses so effectively, Munguia was easily able to penetrate Diaz’s guard and landed the harder cleaner shots throughout the fight. The official scores were 97-92, 96-93, 95-94.
