By Mark Vester

On the undercard to Juan Manuel Marqeuz-Juan Diaz at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, WBA featherweight champion Chris John (42-0, 22KOs) and Rocky Juarez (28-4, 20KOs) battled to a disputed draw where it appeared that John was the clear winner. The scores were 114-114 across the board.

Juarez came out trying to close the gap as John was using his jab and accurate punching to control the round. Juarez began to land better punches in the second. John used some hard punches of his own in the third, throwing a lot of jabs to set up his power punches and badly swelling the left eye of Juarez. The fourth round was another boxing exhibition by John, stepping up the pace and throwing more punches and blocking many of Juarez's shots.

In the fifth, Juarez began to move forward try harder to cut off the ring, but John continued to beat him to the punch. Juarez would get caught as he came in with right hands and one of them opened up a bad cut above his left eye. In the sixth, John came out with Jabs and combination, using his movement to circle around and holding Juarez when he got too close.

John continued to step up his level of punches during the seventh and kept catching Juarez with combinations as he came in. Juarez would land a good left jab, but was being outworked in most of the rounds. Juarez landed a good three punch combination to start off the eight. The right hand combinations of John continued to land often. Juarez continued to press forward with hard shots to the body. John threw 120 punches in the ninth, outworking Juarez who never stopped pressing forward.

Juarez landed a hard left hand in the tenth, and John came back with a hard right and landed another a few moments later. John used his high volume of punching to land at least four punches to every one punch that Juarez would throw. Sensing that he might be down on the cards, Juarez came out swinging in the eleventh, throwing some big punches to try and land something big. Juarez landed a very hard left hook to the body that bothered John. He pressed forward and caught John with some very hard shots as they traded power punches for the final ten seconds.

Both fighters came out in the twelfth to a standing ovation. They were landing their jabs. Juarez would press forward and tried to land a big power punch. John was stunned by a Juarez left hook as the Houston native continued to throw. The two would trade some big punches to end the fight. The crowd gave them another standing ovation.

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