Fightwriter weekend review of fights

[Wheelchair]

Say what you will about the Klitschko brothers but they have faced all comers in their dominance of the heavyweight division. Although Tomasz Adamek stood no chance in Saturday’s title fight in Poland he had earned the right to be there — it was just that Vitali Klitschko was too big, too strong and too good.

 

I don’t know quite why Jim Lampley brought Rocky Marciano into the commentary with his suggestion that Marciano somehow fought inferior opposition, mentioning the name of Roland LaStarza.

 

LaStarza was a capable heavyweight of the 1950s (though he would be small for a cruiserweight today) who had fought very well against Marciano three years earlier, when the decision in Marciano’s favour was deemed controversial. As Max Kellerman reminded Lampley, Marciano, like the Klitschkos, fought the best of his era. Nino Valdes? Well, the big Cuban lost to Bob Baker and Archie Moore in what in effect were elimination matches for the right to meet Marciano, and Baker performed so poorly against Valdes that he eliminated himself from getting a title fight.

 

So, like Rocky all those years ago, the Klitschkos are doing all that really can be expected of them, taking on the best challengers available. It isn’t their fault if the heavyweights of their era aren’t up to the task.

 

Adamek was just as tough and just as game as expected, but as Emanuel Steward remarked in the HBO commentary it was a big man beating up a smaller man.

 

Klitschko is very hard to fight, with his height and reach and the way he judges distance, not to mention his boxing ability and his heavy hitting. Some of his jabs looked so stiff it must be like being hit by any other heavyweight’s right hand.

 

I thought that Adamek, with his movement and boxing ability, might be able to get off to a good start, but it wasn’t to be. The Polish boxing public can feel proud of their man, though. Adamek gave his best effort and endured punishment beyond the call of duty.

 

It looked in the first two rounds as if this would be an early night for Klitschko. A right hand that seemed to land almost on the top of the head had Adamek’s legs buckling alarmingly in the opening round. In the second, a right hand sent Adamek staggering into the ropes.

 

Yet Adamek used all his experience to keep in the fight, moving constantly, attacking in bursts. It was difficult for him to reach the much taller man with any meaningful punches, though, and even when Adamek could hit Klitschko he couldn’t hurt him.

 

When a one-two dropped Adamek in the sixth I made the note “This can’t go much longer,” but Adamek kept plugging away and even landed a solid-looking right hand in the seventh, although it had no effect other than perhaps to startle Klitschko a little.

 

The huge Polish crowd roared every time Adamek landed any kind of a punch, and their encouragement probably played a big part in keeping him going, but by the ninth it was getting painful to watch, with Adamek’s nose bloody and the flesh around his eyes looking bruised and swollen. It was a relief when referee Massimo Barrovecchio waved the finish after two minutes, 20 seconds of the 10th.

 

Elsewhere on a busy boxing weekend there were a couple of debatable decisions in Europe, with Paul McCloskey staging a late-rounds rally to pull out a very close but unanimous decision over Breidis Prescott in their junior welter title elimination match in Belfast, while British prospect Jamie Cox survived losing two points for low blows to snatch a unanimous but close and disputed points win over Ghana’s Obodai Sai in a meeting of unbeaten boxers for the Commonwealth light-middleweight title in London.

 

McCloskey showed real grit in battling back from a shaky start. Things looked bleak for the Irish southpaw in the early rounds. He unluckily had an eight count given against him in the opening round, when Prescott seemed to drag him down with his left arm hooked behind McCloskey's head. In round two McCloskey’s nose spurted blood as Prescott scored sharply with jabs and right hands. There were times in the early part of the fight when McCloskey, considered something of a defensive wizard, was getting hit by far more clean shots than Amir Khan was able to land on him. The taller, longer-armed Prescott was boxing beautifully — but the Irish fighter turned things around with surging attacks, roared on by the passionately supportive crowd.

 

In a strange reversal of roles, McCloskey began to look the puncher in the fight, with his Colombian opponent becoming the slick boxer.

 

McCloskey has no muscle tone but he is thick in the body and he was the stronger man. Unable to get results with his customary slipping, swaying and countering style, McCloskey changed tack and in the bout’s second half was almost bullying Prescott, forcing his opponent onto the retreat and whacking him with some heavy left hands from his southpaw stance, the body blows in particular seeming to affect the slender Colombian boxer.

 

I thought McCloskey won it on the last round. He was banging Prescott around the ring for the first two and a half minutes of the round — or at least it seemed that way to me. Prescott was game and determined, though, and made a spirited fight-back. McCloskey seemed to have punched himself into a state of exhaustion and he was staggering at the final bell, but, for me, Prescott’s late rush hadn’t been enough to pull out the round.

 

Naturally enough, the Prescott camp is protesting about a hometown robbery, and that is their job. In reality this was a close contest, and in fights such as this the hometown fighter will usually get the advantage on the judges’ cards in most of the hard-to-score rounds — what some call the “swing” rounds. This is just the reality of boxing.

 

The same sort of thing happened in the bout between Jamie Cox and Obodai Sai — the home fighter was given the benefit of the doubt in rounds that in truth could have been scored either way.

 

Look, would Cox have got any breaks had the fight been in Ghana? Would McCloskey have caught any breaks had he been meeting Prescott in Colombia? When we talk about a boxer having home-ground advantage, we factor in such things as crowd support and the likelihood of a judge swaying towards the local fighter in rounds where it is hard to split the fighters.

 

There was no question that Cox came out looking the worse for wear in his bout with Sai. Cox was cut over both eyes and had a bloody nose. Facial damage doesn’t always mean that a boxer has been outscored, though. Cox made a huge effort — a very gutsy, hard-working performance. The tall, rangy Sai was technically the superior boxer and landed most of the eye-catching punches, jabbing nicely and knocking back Cox’s head with right hands. Cox kept his fists pumping, though and if he couldn’t outbox Sai he was at least outhustling the capable boxer from Ghana.

 

Sky Sports analyst Richie Woodhall had it a one-point win for Sai, and when Cox was deducted his second point for going low with the left hand — in the last round — I thought that the southpaw from the West of England had probably blown any chance he had of getting the verdict.

 

Yet while Cox was perhaps a tad fortunate to have got the verdict, it was hardly a so-called robbery — and it wasn’t so long ago when a boxer from Ghana, Charles Adamu, got a highly questionable, split decision win in the U.K. over Carl Dilks in a Commonwealth title fight the British boxer seemed to have won clearly — Ghana’s Joseph Laryea soundly outboxed Paul Appleby in another Commonwealth title bout in the U.K. and Laryea deservedly got the decision.

 

There was a time in British boxing when the U.K. fight fraternity was convinced that British referees (at a time when the referee was the sole arbiter) would seek to prove their impartiality by scoring all the close fights in favour of the visitor. Willie Pastrano over Brian London, Mike DeJohn over Dick Richardson, Don Johnson over Howard Winstone, the French lightweight Guy Gracia over Dave Charnley in a rematch that Charnley seemed to win comfortably, all come to mind. There is a very long list of visiting boxers who have come away with points victories in the U.K.

 

Even in more recent times, with three judges scoring, there have been hotly disputed decisions in the U.K. in favour of the visiting fighter: Willie Jorrin over Michael Brodie; Simone Maludrottu over Damien Kelly; Lovemore Ndou escaping with a seemingly fortunate draw against Matthew Hatton. Why do people keep screaming robbery and corruption? Debatable decisions have occurred throughout ring history, many of them taking place in the U.S.

 

At least there was no dispute over the decision when Vincent Arroyo pounded out a unanimous points victory over Hector Sanchez in an excellent junior welter bout on ShoBox. Arroyo won with superior power, combinations and body punching and probably should have been given a 10-8 round when he had Sanchez out on his feet in the eighth round. Sanchez showed toughness that I didn’t think he possessed. He stood up to some big shots and, both eyes battered and bruised, even managed to stagger Arroyo a bit with a right hand in the thrilling last round.

 

Losing is no fun, but I believe that Prescott, the Ghanaian Sai and Puerto Rican Sanchez all enhanced their reputations. Prescott and Sai boxed really well and both impressed me greatly — indeed Prescott now looks a considerably improved, classier fighter than the one who blew out Amir Khan three years ago.

 

http://www.fightwriter.com/too-big-too-powerful-too-good-vitali-klitschko-tko10-tomasz-adamek