Jamel Herring’s journey to his title defense against Jonathan Oquendo on Saturday was filled with uncommon challenges. The fight was no different.
The junior lightweight champion, who had to overcome the coronavirus to step through the ropes, found himself fact to face with a human battering ram and he never really figured out how to cope with it in a fight everyone will want to forget.
Herring (22-2, 10 KOs) emerged victorious but only because of Oquendo’s head-first tactics, which ultimately led to his disqualification after Round 8.
“It just got ugly,” Herring said.
The fight was postponed after each of the two times Herring tested positive for COVID-19 but the virus couldn’t keep him down. He battled through the symptoms and, by fight time on Saturday in the MGM Grand “bubble” in Las Vegas, he said he felt 100 percent.
And he looked reasonably sharp beginning in the second round, when he adjusted somewhat to Oquendo’s bull rushes by timing him with punches, side-stepping him or holding when necessary.
Herring seemed to be taking control in the third round, when a left uppercut put Oquendo (31-7, 19 KOs) on his pants. The fourth was largely the same, with Herring getting the better of exchanges. Then, in the fifth, a clash of heads caused a deep cut over Herring’s right eye and changed everything.
Referee Tony Weeks ruled it an intentional foul, which would play a role in the conclusion of the fight.
From that point on, Herring struggled. Oquendo continued to push his way inside, to fight as roughly as he knew how, and a bloody-faced Herring was beyond frustrated. He had trouble seeing, he had no space to throw punches and the Puerto Rican challenger just never let up.
Finally, after Round 8, Herring’s trainer Brian McIntyre told Weeks that Herring’s vision was obstructed because of the damage above his eye. A doctor stepped in and asked Herring whether he could see. He replied, “no.”
And after a few minutes of discussion, Weeks had no choice but to stop the fight. Oquendo was disqualified because the fight ended as a result of his foul.
“We knew coming in he was going to be aggressive, with his head first,” Herring said. “He kept repeating it. Tony caught on. I didn’t want it to go on like that. … My team felt it was too much and they had to stop it. Whatever.”
Did Herring quit? After all, his eye wasn’t swollen shut. He merely had blood dripping into it, which boxers fight through all the time. Fans and pundits undoubtedly will debate Herring’s actions over the next several days.
The fact is he emerged with his title belt and he remains on track to face former two-division beltholder Carl Frampton, a fight Herring covets. Then he will be able to look forward instead of back at 20 horrible weeks of ups and downs and a horrible fight.
“I wasn’t too satisfied with my performance,” he said. “… I had never been in a situation where we had to stop a fight. It’s not always about getting a win; it’s how you look. It is what it is. [Promoter] Bob [Arum] told me to rest. It was a 20-week training camp. I still want Frampton next, in December or November.
“Physically, I was good. … I was never huffing and puffing. It just got too ugly. Over the second half of the fight, I just felt it was bad.”