FightPost Boxer of the Week: Jamel Herring

FightPost Boxer of the Week: Jamel Herring

By Gary Kittilsen

Jamel “Semper Fi” Herring was a considerable underdog walking into his first ever world title fight. The former US Marine and Olympian had amassed a moderate fan base among boxing hardcores in the States, but was given almost no chance of defeating WBO champ Masayuki Ito of Japan.

Ito was coming off impressive victories over Christopher Diaz and Evgeny Chuprakov. Two undefeated fighters both considered superior to Herring, who had two previous losses one to Ladarius Miller and then other to Denis Shafikov and whos best wins were lower level names like Art Hovhannisyan and John Vincent Moralde.

It would have been the perfect situation for Herring, fighting on what would have been the 10th birthday of his late daughter Ariyanah, and on Memorial Day weekend, it was a perfect setting for Herring to capture his first world title.

Herring obliged handing in a near perfect performance to capture the WBO 140-pound strap from Ito and take home our fighter of the week award.

The American boxed brilliantly out of his southpaw stance from the opening bell on. Neutralizing the one-punch power and massive right hand of the champ. Peppering Ito with the jab and the occasional right hook and straight left, Herring was able to keep Ito at bay and avoided heated exchanges.

Starting in the middle rounds, suspecting he was down on the scorecards, Ito tried to pick up the pace but most of his lunging power shots were avoided by the slick challenger. when Ito was able to get inside.

Herring stood his ground nicely and landed effective body shots and won much of the action on the inside. Ito did land a few effective shots but never really got in going or posed much of a risk as Herring avoided Ito’s final push in the 12th round and cruised to a one-sided unanimous decision with scores of 116-112 and 118-110 twice to capture the WBO title.

Herring is currently signed with Bob Arum and Top Rank which puts him in position to get a number of lucrative fights, including a unification bout with WBC champ Miguel Berchelt. A fight that seems probable if not likely, as Arum is looking to make one of these two into a star and eventually move them up to 135 to face Lomachenko.

A fight against Lomachenko, who is considered to be among the pound for pound best in the sport is the most sought-after prize for anyone on the Top Rank side and could realistically get made at either 130 or 135, both Herring and Loma have fought and expressed interest in fighting at both super featherweight and lightweight.

The other possible scenario would be a fight with Top Ranks mega-prospect Shakur Stevenson. If Arum wanted to move his star prospect up from 126 to 130 to get him a title shot this year.