(Aired on the nineteenth of August, 2013-I've just received my DVR back to post about this match recently)
In round one, Gomez boxed casually throughout the first half of the round, not letting the significantly taller Chambers bother him with his solid jab at all, and catching him with a few sharp left hooks. In the second half of the round Gomez let it go from slightly leading what would've been a 10/9 round on my card to bludgeoning Chambers in an easily called 10/8 round, despite no knockdowns. There would be some refs who would've jumped the gun in there, toward the end of the round. Steve Smoger, the referee of this bout, is not prone to such things. Some may even nitpick that Gomez took a chance at punching himself out but
the way Chambers looked, it seemed a fair call to jump on him as
aggressively as he did. Chambers didn't even seem clearheaded enough to clinch.
Gomez did not enter the ring with a high kayo ratio but he seemed very heavy-handed from the start of this one. The weigh-ins from these two may go against their height difference, as Gomez seems to be the naturally heftier man. Steve is the younger brother of Eddie Chambers, by the way. In round two, Gomez comes storming out of the gates, having smelled blood in the first. He did not appear to have any notion that Chambers got his bearings between rounds. Even as Gomez calms down, he's still, as commentator Paulie Malignaggi points out, plowing right through Chambers' guard whenever he feels like it. Chambers' guard is woefully inadequate as a single facet of defense against the arsenal of Gomez. He's not moving his head or feet or rolling his shoulders. It's all earmuffs and Gomez is loving it. This is a clash of different classes for certain. Gomez is far more offensively and defensively dynamic and has far more power and confidence behind that skill level.
In round three, Gomez is still blasting Chambers. Even jabs are landing with the thudding authority of power punches. Gomez pulls a little Jersey Joe Walcott style showboating, turning his back and walking away, no fear of Chambers following. He's smiling, he's having a good time. Chambers just doesn't belong in the ring with Gomez, by the looks of it. Gomez can pot shot, put blistering combinations together, he can essentially do anything he wants so far without any concern for the level of threat Chambers seems to carry.
In round four, it is still clear that Chambers is in over his head here. He's adjusting his trunks and eating shots because of it, as in more than once. He's trying to use Eddie Chambers' way of putting the guard up but also bending backwards and out of the way of punches. It's almost a rope-a-dope without the rope. Frankly, he just cannot do that. He does not have close to the timing and he is getting tagged cleanly while trying to do this. Chambers begins following Gomez around without throwing any punches, just allowing Gomez to tee off whenever he likes, no jabbing while stalking a man who has been hurting him consistently. I don't know if this is representative of Chambers' ring IQ at its best, but any strategy he may have had in this fight could've been knocked out of him in the first round.
I think Chambers realises here that in an 8-round fight, with him not being a puncher, he needs to be dramatically active and lay it all out on the line. To his credit, he does want to give it his best shot to do so and this leads to the most sustained trading between them. But Chambers' legs are not sturdy and as Gomez wades in for the last time and knocks him around like a rag doll, even Steve Smoger says it's all for not and calls the fight against a lucid but hurting and frustrated Chambers. Gomez's TKO4 over Chambers is a clinic and a beating. The young Bronx "Eboy" looks the goods as a light middleweight prospect. Chambers looks to need a long trip back to the drawing board. You can't take many fights like that.
There's some talk about Smoger calling it when he did, as Chambers had probably been hurt just as bad, if not worse, at multiple points in the short match. Bernard Hopkins mentions that Smoger has the opposite of a reputation for stopping fights early-which is certainly true-and that in the end you basically must defer to his viewpoint from in the ring. I think it was a good call. Chambers had the heart to make his stand as best as he could but Smoger knew he was having little to no effect on Gomez and taking very considerable punishment. Gomez and Smoger get an A from me. Somebody, please get Gomez in there for his next step up and make sure it's on television.
Miscellaneous notes:
*Bernard Hopkins, Paulie Malignaggi and Dave Bontempo are the commentators for the night on this FS1 broadcast.
*Final punch stats have Gomez landing at 52%, 304 thrown, 158 landed and Chambers landing at 24%, 192 thrown, 47 landed. I didn't count each punch. But it's believable from my view in this dominant showcase.
Work that bag,
Basement Gym Boxing
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