ESPN's Friday Night Fights: Dionisio Miranda VS Sebastien Demers

ESPN's Friday Night Fights: Dionisio Miranda VS Sebastien Demers

ESPN Broadcast: Friday Night Fights
Date: August 01, 2008
Place: Gare Windsor Salle des Pas Perdus, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Division: Middleweight
Rounds Scheduled: 10
Our Commentators (Besides Me): Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas

Fighters:

Dionisio Miranda:
Record: 18-2-2 with 17 kayos
Hometown: Barranquilla, Colombia
Height: 6'1
Weight: 159 lbs Age: 26
*Most of Miranda's fights have been in Colombia. Miranda is taking the fight on five days notice to go fight the hometown boy who usually wins by decision. Risky career move.

Sebastien Demers:

Record: 25-1-0 with 9 kayos
Hometown: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Age: 28
Weight: 159
Height: 6'0

*Like Miranda, most of his fights have been in his own home country.


BE's round by round scoring and breakdown:
Our Referee: Michael Griffin


Round 1: for Demers: Demers stumbles Miranda backwards with a jab. Demers controls the distance for the first half of the round. Miranda gets Demers to a corner and cracks him in the body. Demers shows off some superior speed and puts a few good shots together but he's not a power puncher.

Round 2: Even: They're very tentative so far. Miranda lands some nice body shots. He might put a damper on Demers' mobility. Miranda gets in another good, ripping body shot. Miranda finally lands a good right hand to the head towards the end of the round. He may have the distance measured now but Demers' willingness to throw ensured that he evened the round up.

Round 3: for Demers: Demers is much more willing to fire but not really looking to make each punch land. Miranda tries only a few times to get in his right hand but he's wasting time looking for the perfect shot. Miranda was a sparring partner for the great Miguel Cotto recently, remarks Joe Tessitore. Miranda is looking for a knock out while giving up the round. Not smart.

Round 4: for Miranda: Miranda finally catches him again but talk about throwing them one at a time. Demers gets in a jab to the body and a second later eats a big left hook that knocked him back. Miranda looks very encouraged but not going nuts thinking he hurt his man more than he did. Demers gets very skittish towards the end of the round, dancing backwards and not at all willing to fight. I am going with Miranda for much harder, better punches.

Round 5: for Miranda: Miranda starts to swing wild a little bit, looking amateurish. Demers catches Miranda going backwards and the crowd reacts like it was more meaningful than it was. Miranda has caught some really good ones. Miranda finally lands a decent jab to the head. He should work that jab a lot more than he is. Demers lost his mouthpiece and they call a time to get it back in. He took some jolting shots in this round. Demers threw more but I think Miranda got the better of the landed shots. I think if he doesn't use his jab more, he's going to lose on a lot of judges scorecards.

Round 6: for Demers: After Demers misses and Miranda ducks, Miranda gets an arm on the back of his neck and it puts him down. No knock down, of course. Demers is dancing backward a lot and I think he really respects Miranda's punching power. Demers forces Miranda down with his arm again while Miranda is ducking. Demers is taking the round pretty easily with his control of distance here. Miranda's woeful inactivity as he looks for the one big shot is probably going to cost him the fight.

Round 7: for Demers: Miranda flicks out a few jabs but is way off. Demers has a superior jab. Demers looked like he blatantly spat out his mouthpiece in a time when he didn't even look to be in trouble. I believe I cursed at that. Demers still takes the round though.

Round 8: for Miranda: Demers looks far less respectful of Miranda's punching power now but Miranda just isn't letting the big ones go. They trade a few rabbit punches, initiated by Demers. Demers' reflexes look a lot better. Miranda catches him with a great, long right hand. Teddy says Demers is hurt. I wonder how much. Miranda needs a knock out for a win tonight in all likelihood. He catches him again but Demers already looks clear headed. Miranda may not have gotten that round on the judges' scorecards but I think having Demers hurt, he should take it. It was a whale of a right hand that took that round.

Round 9: for Miranda: Miranda comes out looking for a knock out with urgency. He gets another big one and Demers takes a knee and an eight count. He's badly rattled. Demers tries to tie Miranda up and he's still not far recovered. Miranda is still trying to measure up for his big right. He catches him again and Demers returns one. Demers bulls in and lands a decent shot. Miranda might be a little stunned but I don't think much. Demers' mouthpiece *conveniently* comes out for the third time. Nice. Demers hangs onto Miranda's head in a lock after absorbing more punishment in a good trade. Good round for Miranda.

Round 10: for Even: Demers lands a very big right now. He is much more varied than Miranda. If he had the same power, Miranda would be dead. He lands on Miranda a few more good rights but Miranda is letting go more now too. Demers coming in trying to salvage the sense of dominance, eats a good right again, timed well by Miranda. Demers isn't backing down now, which I give him credit for. They trade hard in this round. Again with the mouthpiece for Demers! They shouldn't let him get away with that. Demers pushes Miranda down to the canvas at the end, hard. It's rightly not ruled a knock down. I've had about enough of Demers to be honest. I'm glad it's over.

BE's Score: Rounds: 4 for Miranda, 4 for Demers and two even or 95-95 for a draw.
Teddy's Scorecard: Six rounds for Demers, four for Miranda with one a 10/8 round over Demers or 95-94 for Demers.

The Official Judge's scores:
95-94 for Demers
94-95 for Miranda
95-94 for the winner by split decision and new NABA Middleweight champion.

BE's Bottom line: Demers and Miranda were both on and off during the fight but Miranda is the only one who seriously hurt his opponent and though he didn't throw as much or as much as he should have, he landed much harder and better and the judges took notice. Demers may have out landed altogether but as far as the rounds go, I think it was close enough for an even match to be justifiable. Either way, none of the judges nor Teddy's score seemed unreasonable to me. It was close and some of the rounds were deceptively difficult to score. Miranda, I'll reiterate was not particularly varied and spent far too much time early on looking for one knock out punch and Demers fought well-better most often- but pulled some tactics he should've been called on. It could have gone either way. A very evenly matched fight.

Lastly, on an interesting note for the scoring: There was one American judge and two Canadian judges for this fight with a Canadian champ and a Colombian. The American judge is the one who gave the fight to Demers and the hometown judges gave the fight to the Colombian. Earlier I said it was a bad idea to fight a man who usually went to the scorecards in his hometown but the judges were more than fair. I applaud them.