Saturday night’s fight on ESPN failed to live up to expectations, with Xander Zayas (19-0, 12 KOs) winning a ten-round unanimous decision over former junior middleweight champion Patrick Teixeira (34-5, 25 KOs) in a lackluster contest at Madison Square Garden.
The 21-year-old Zayas, promoted by Top Rank, came out on top in all three of the judges’ scorecards, with 100-90, 100-90, and 99-91. Top Rank has got their work cut out for them if they want to turn Zayas into a star nationwide in the U.S. rather than just in a small part of New York.
As we saw tonight, Zayas’ fighting style is too saftey-rist for him to become a star outside of sections of NYC.
A Fight Marred by Caution and Lack of Action
Zayas put the pressure on the stork-like Teixeira throughout the fight, landing shots and ensuring that he didn’t get hit in return. Xander’s focus on not getting hit through the first seven rounds made the the fight unwatchable because the 33-year-old Teixeira was barely throwing any punches.
Against that type of fighter, Zayas should have been all over him, throwing punches in combination form, but he was worried. Zayas let his hands go in the ninth, trying to score a knockout, but Teixeira managed to survive the final two rounds to finish the fight on his feet.
The fight was slow at the start with both fighters showing caution. Zayas, 21, was surprisingly hesitant to go after Teixeira and looked worried about the southpaw Brazilian’s power after getting hit a few times.
With both guys being hesitant to mix it, there was no action to speak of for the first seven rounds. The crowd was there to see Zayas, but they had nothing to cheer. It would have been interesting to hear their thoughts because they had to be thinking, ‘This is not what we thought he was.’
Zayas did get his offensive in gear in the ninth to apply some pressure on Teixeira, but he lacked the power or the courage to put it on the bleeding fighter to score the knockout. If Zayas had gone all out, he probably would have gotten the knockout, but the bravery wasn’t there to enable him to do that. Zayas does not like to get hit, and there’s no revelation because we’d seen this in his last few fights.
Zayas’ Performance Leaves Fans Disappointed
The pro-Zayas crowd was quiet by the midpoint of the contest, and they looked bored by his performance. Even though Zayas won the fight by wide scores, his failure to knock out a fighter who was barely throwing any punches left the fans upset.
With a crowd that size, Zayas should have gone all out to try and get the knockout rather than putting in a token effort.
On the positive side, Zayas showed off his technical talent and his outstanding defense, but fans don’t come to see fighters not get hit. They want to see knockouts, not someone who is dodging punches and stepping back whenever he’s attacked the way Zayas was doing.
