Eduardo Baez Gets Solid Win Over Jose Vivas
On March 26, #11 ranked WBO 126-pound contender Jose Enrique Durantes Vivas (21-2, 11KOs) faced tough veteran Eduardo Baez (21-2-2, 7KOs) in a ten-round fight. Vivas went into the fight on a four-fight winning streak and looked to gain better standing in the WBO rankings. The only loss in his career came to former world title challenger Ruben Villa (18-1, 5KOs) back in September of 2019.
On the contrary, it was his opponent, Baez, who hoped a victory would propel him into a more significant fight. His last ring outing was an unsuccessful one as he was defeated by top 122-pound contender Ra’eese Aleem, losing by a majority decision.
IMMEDIATE FIREFIGHT!
Both fighters started the fight off with a banger! It was almost as if both men were drawn together by an invisible magnetic force. Vivas and Baez traded big shots to the head and body while fighting a phonebooth type of fight in the first couple of rounds.
Baez, hungry for a solid win, surprisingly changed up his strategy in round three. He would start boxing on the back foot, pumping out his jab while ripping hard left and right hooks into the body of Vivas.
Baez completely befuddled Vivas with the change of strategy to box instead of stand and bang. Baez’s jab set up his thudding, effective offensive attack. Outside of his tremendous body attack, the left uppercut was very effective for Baez, who showed he had more versatility than Vivas. Vivas simply had no answer to the change of strategy by his adversary.
As is with boxing, the scorecards aren’t always a reflection of the action in the ring. After ten rounds of action, Baez would be declared the winner, albeit by a very questionable majority decision. The scores were 95-95, 96-94, and 98-92.
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By: Jerrell Fletcher
