Saturday, April 01, 2006

Suprisingly, A Great Fight, and a New WBO Heavyweight Champ

"Relentless" Lamon Brewster and Serguei "The White Wolf" Lyakhovich fought one helluva fight tonight. This was the best heavyweight fight of the last two years.

In the first four rounds, the fighters sought to establish dominance. Brewster's attempt to "Golata-cize" the bout (jump on him early and often) fizzled, as Lyakhovich's handspeed squelched Brewster's counter-punching, particularly limiting the use of Brewster's famed left hook. Lyakhovich was landing combinations that did not seem to damage Brewster, but they kept Lamon out of his game plan. Lyakhovich also landed a great many straight right hands to the body, which slowed Lamon as the fight wore on.

In the fifth, Brewster landed a flurry of punches, finishing with a body shot that set Lyakhovich's knees to wobbling. It must not have hurt Lyakhovich too badly, as he righted himslef and fought back after Brewster began to tire. In the final seconds Ernest Sharif, the referee, disgraced himself, probably ruining his career, when he stepped in between the two fighters at the 10-second alert (which is in itself controversial), which prematurely ended the round. Presumably, he mistook the alert for the round-ending bell. This was significant because, while Brewster had been punishing Lyakhovich, the White Wolf had fought back, and the punched-out Brewster was sagging near-defenseless against the ropes. The final seconds were not fought, and the break was highlighted with an amusing bit of abuse for the ref by Lyakhovich's corner.


For most of the sixth round, Lyakhovich dominated Brewster, but as the sixth drew to a close, Brewster landed a flurry of punches, finishing with a body shot that sent Lyakhovich down. It wasn't much of a knockdown, more like Lyakhovich taking a knee, and he quickly rose after taking a much-needed breather.

As the middle rounds progressed, Brewster continued to land a few big punches, but way too few for the number he was throwing. Had Brewster not been so fatigued, more of those punches would have landed. As Lyakhovich was dangerously leaving his guard down, that would have made the difference in the fight. As it was, Lyakhovich stupidly disregarded the advice of his trainer, Kenny Weldon, and Belorussian took a lot of punches that he did not need to take. Buddy McGirt was also giving Brewster good advice, though he seemed too tired to follow those instructions.

In the ninth round, Lyakhovich nearly KO'd Brewster, punishing him against the ropes. Brewster again showed a chin of stone, fighting back to wobble Lyakhovich. Had the round been 30 seconds longer, there is no telling what would have happened. As it was, it was a great round.

The fight ended with Lyakhovich firmly in control. He smartly stayed away from scrapping with Brewster, chosing instead to box, tatooing Brewster with his jab. Part of what made this fight so exciting is the knowledge that Brewster had the potential to end the fight at any time. Both fighters showed great heart, endurance, and skill. If they have a rematch, I'll certainly watch it.

Also, not that anyone cares, but Kevin McBride won a TKO victory over Byron Polley. Yay....I guess.

2 Comments:

Blogger Heff said...

Damn. Hate I missed that one.

9:34 AM  
Blogger Paul said...

Yeah, this was the first heavyweight bout of the year that was worth watching.

10:30 AM  

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