Former WBC Silver super bantamweight Champion Andres "Jaguarcito" Gutiérrez, who climbed right up to the super featherweight division, won a rugged hard fought victory over determined, hard hitting Filipino Jhon Gemino, in Acapulco.
While Jhon looked ripped and lean at super featherweight, Andres markedly seemed to be less defined and he soon learned that the bigger they are the harder they hit. By round two his left eye was almost swollen shut and although it didn't worsen to a slit, it certainly hampered him for the rest of the eight rounds. His corner applied ample vaseline, but less evidence of a flat iron was seen.
Jhon was finding Andres with eye watering uppercuts and winging right hooks. So instead of getting spots knocked off himself, Jaguarcito decide to change his spots and intelligently box.
He efficiently worked behind a long, ramrod left jab, slipping increasingly wild lunges, which remained dangerous and highly unpredictable. Jaguarcito also started putting together better combinations showing power plus conditioning honed for month at the Otomí High Altitude Center, perched in the mountains overseeing Toluca.
Andres dug those powerful combinations into Jhon's liver and ribcage, sapping some, but certainly not all of the visitor's willingness to go for broke. Andres face was becoming a mess, worsened by a nose bleed, while his Filipino remained mostly unmarked and cheerfully grinning at the end of rounds. Yet, Andres landed a higher volumen of accurate straight punches, and Jhon mounted more sporadic attacks via hooks from all angles. These became sparser and more infrequent.
Towards the end of the fight Jhon elected to punch but also move, after tasting some sustained heavy artillery. The two went at it like wildcats in the final 20 seconds.
Andres certainly earned and deserved the 97-92, 97-92 and 98-91 unanimous decision the hard way, and Jhon sportingly applauded. But it was a real baptism of fire in the heavier division!