Saturday nights PBC on Spike presentation featured Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero as the heavy favorite against unknown David Peralta (26-2-1, 14 KO) of Argentina, however the former world champion put up an incredibly disappointing performance, losing a split decision on scorecards of 116-112 and 115-113 for Peralta, with one judge seeing the bout 115-113 for Guerrero.
Guerrero, the former multi-division world champion from California, showed a good game plan for the first few rounds, landing solid body shots and quick counters, but the story of the fight quickly became Peralta’s right hand, as he landed it overtop the veteran’s defense consistently for the entire second half of Spike’s main event.
After having a huge cut open up over his eye in the 3rd, the Argentine started brawling less and picking his shots against Guerrero (33-5-1, 18 KO). He controlled the tempo, even landing a crushing right hand late in the 9th round that sent his foe backing up, being help up simply by the ropes.
While “The Ghost” disputed the decision after the fight, saying he believed he had “clearly won the fight”, it was very evident that he is nowhere near contender status at this point. Guerrero claimed he will be back and continue to fight on, but considering his troubles with a lower level fighter such as Peralta, it’s difficult to see him causing much of a stir at this stage of his career.
On the undercard, longtime fan-favorite brawler Alfredo “El Perro” Angulo (24-6, 20 KO), of Mexico, dropped a majority decision in a mild upset to veteran Freddy Hernandez (34-8, 22 KO) on scores of 98-92 and 97-93 twice.
Angulo has now dropped four of his last 6 fights, with his 2 wins coming against incredibly outmatched opponents. He spent the entirety of the fight in an attempt to rush his opponent, looking to land monster shots instead of put together any sort of plan. Hernandez had a nasty cut open over his eye in the 5th frame, however his corner managed to keep it under control for the remainder of the contest. “El Perro” never stopped attacking, however Hernandez simply outboxed and outworked his foe en route to an easy decision victory that will leave Angulo with a lot to consider as far as the future of his career is concerned.
In the opening showcase, Super Featherweight Terrell Gausha (19-0, 9 KO), a 2012 US Olympian, won a hard fought majority decision against Steve Martinez (16-3, 13 KO) with a good showing in a true step-up fight.
Martinez kept the fight close for the whole bout, however it was evident that Gausha had the quicker and cleaner shots landing. Gausha resorted to holding a good portion of the fifth and sixth rounds due to thudding body shots by Martinez, however the decorated amateur found his groove again in the last few rounds to take the fight on scores of 97-93 twice and a 95-95 draw. Gausha looked to be a solid counter puncher with some decent speed, which will surely land him another spot on a PBC card in the near future.
