Monday 12 August 2013

Akira Yaegashi v Oscar Blanquet

If I was to say one of my favourite fights is Akira Yaegashi (18-3, 9) then that it's fair to assume that I was really looking forward to the first defense of his WBC Flyweight title. Unfortunately however the Japanese action man's fight with Oscar Blanquet (32-6-1, 23) really failed to live up to expectation as they styles completely failed to gel.

The first few rounds were by far the most competitive with the scores through 4 showing a genuinely close contest with the open scoring showing 39-37 once to each man a 38-38 score card leaving us effectively with a split draw through the first 4 rounds.

After the competitive nature of the opening few rounds Yaegashi started to turn up the screw and built on his crisp jab by landing lovely sweeping counter left hooks. Unfortunately the more Yaegashi the more and more negative Blanquet became with the Mexican beginning to hold, spoil and turn to the referee after every hurtful body shots. It was obvious from about round 6 onwards that that Blanquet felt he was unable to win and was instead going to make things difficult for Yaegashi.

Despite being held constantly Yaegashi would continue to land the bouts only notable shots which included a low blow and a knockdown both in round 8 which saw the round scored 9-8 in favour of Yaegashi who by now had established a notable lead on all 3 cards.

With the open scoring having Yaegashi well out in the lead he made sure he won round 9 and then almost cruised the final 3 rounds picking his spots and effectively telling Blanquet that he was no longer going to force a fight and be thwarted by a man who wasn't there to fight. As we all know Yaegashi is an action fighter but it was obvious through the later rounds that he was a frustrated fighter and refused to let Blanquet further frustrate him.

Unfortunately this may well go down as Yaegashi's least entertaining televised fight, though on the whole it was due to the negativity of Blanquet as opposed to anything Yaegashi did or could have done. Hopefully next time out he'll face a more willing dance partner.

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