Boxing Bulletin British Scene

Welcome to the first edition of the The Boxing Bulletin's new weekly column on British Boxing. Each Monday, Dave Oakes and Matt Chudley will bring you all the action involving British and Irish fighters over the previous weekend.

This week, the focus is on the memorable super-bantamweight scrap between Bernard Dunne and Ricardo Cordoba, as well as Ian Napa's European bantamweight title fight against France's Malik Bouziane

Dave and Matt will also be previewing upcoming bouts in a column that will appear later in the week.

Saturday March 21 High Drama in Dublin: Dunne Topples Cordoba By Matt Chudley Photo © Eoin Campbell, check out the rest of Eoin Campbell's photos from the night's action here. In outlasting Ricardo Cordoba through an all out war which saw both men downed on multiple occasions Bernard Dunne walked away with a portion of the *WBA super-bantamweight title, in what just may have been one of the most thrilling fights ever staged on Irish soil. The home fighter’s victory completed a great day for sports in Ireland as it came mere hours after the Irish Rugby team had captured their first grand slam since 1948. Dunne, who entered the bout as a sizable underdog with the book-makers was also making his first return to the sold out O2 Arena in Dublin, since his lone professional defeat there in August of 2007. On that night, when the venue was known as The Point, Dunne was dropped twice by Spain’s Kiko Martinez, and failed to make it out of the first round. Perhaps the memory of the Martinez fight still lingered in Dunne’s mind, as he came out in the first round holding his gloves uncharacteristically high. The Panamanian southpaw also began cautiously, mainly using a range finding jab to try and set up his straight left. Dunne reverted to his natural stance in the second working behind a purposeful jab, with Cordoba still working the 1-2, jab-left attack. In the third round, Dunne began to find a home for his left hook, and with 30 seconds remaining in the round, a perfectly placed hook sent Cordoba stumbling backwards across the ring, before landing on the canvas. The punch caught Cordoba, who was leaning in while throwing a right hand to the body, flush on the side of the jaw and lit a fire under the partisan crowd. Dunne jumped on the attack as soon as referee Hubert Earle had finished administering the count but there was not enough time left in the round to press home the advantage. The interval gave the game Panamanian enough time to recover and showing his fighting spirit he was happy to engage his Irish opponent in the fourth round, but was still shipping left hooks. A head clash midway through the round left Dunne with a cut above his left eyebrow. In the opening seconds of the fifth round, Cordoba touched down from what appeared at first to be a clean left hook to the head but referee Earle signaled that he believed it to have been a slip. Replays indicated, Cordoba’s lead right foot may have tripped over Dunne’s left, after the punch had landed. Later in the round after a flush right hook staggered Dunne, Cordoba followed up with a barrage of punches along the ropes, culminating with a left-right combination that sent Dunne to the canvas. Dunne was up at the count of 3, and tried to battle his way out of trouble, but was put down again later in the round, this time from a sweetly placed right hook. He was up quickly though and after nodding that he was okay, managed to tie up Cordoba’s follow-up attack, and last out the remaining 35 seconds of the round. During the next few rounds the action became scrappier though both boxers continued to favor the same punches which had provided them with knockdowns earlier in the fight. Perhaps showing that the pace of the contest was getting to him Cordoba stumbled when seemingly unforced a couple of times during the eighth round. The steady pace continued into the ninth and tenth rounds, with the tiring Cordoba remaining steadfast in his determination to hang on to his WBA strap. Despite his condition appearing to waver slightly, the little Panamanian warrior used his size advantage to press Dunne up against the ropes, half catching him numerous times. Midway through the eleventh round, with both fighters looking exhausted, but still battling hard, Dunne hurt Cordoba during an exchange in the middle of the ring. Dunne, who later learned that he was trailing on all three judge’s cards, immediately pursued Cordoba to the ropes and launched a steady flow of punches that sent Cordoba stumbling backwards along the ropes, crashing to the canvas near the corner. Cordoba was up quickly, but looked like a beaten man. With plenty of time left in the round and realizing the end may be in sight Dunne continued his assault. Cordoba seemed too tired to keep his hands up or clinch effectively when in close, but bravely tried to fight back, before being put down again from another left hook. At this point, it could well have been appropriate to call an end to the fight but Earle let the tough champ continue until another left hook sent him down for the final time. Without a count, the fight was waved off. The time was 2:59 of round eleven. Cordoba stayed down for some time and was escorted from the ring on a stretcher. He was quickly taken to hospital for precautionary tests, which thankfully all turned up clear. It was a rough ending, to a brutal war of attrition that saw both men pushed to their limits. Undoubtedly we’ll be talking about this one again at the end of the year, when the FOTY debates heat up. *The WBA’s super-bantamweight champion, Celestino Caballero was elevated to “Super” champion after his win over Steve Molitor in a title unification bout last year. The undercard... Middleweight Andy Lee returned to action for the first time in 10 months in what appeared to be a measured test against his former sparring partner Alexander Sipos, although didn’t seem that way when Lee was cut above the right eye in the first. With the exception of the first and ninth rounds Lee used his ring generalship to keep the rugged Sipos at a distance and put the German down in the sixth with a perfectly placed right hook. There where a few hairy moments for Lee throughout the fight when Sipos managed to work his way in close; Lee showing that his defense on the inside is still rather suspect. e-mail Matt Chudley

Friday March 20 Bouziane Claims Euro Title By Dave Oakes Malik Bouziane became the European bantamweight champion on Friday night with an emphatic points victory over Ian Napa. Bouziane controlled the pace early on with quick jabs and straight rights before darting out of range. That was a glimpse of things to come as he dominated the fight in that fashion until the final bell. The odds-on favourite Napa was never in the fight and despite a late surge, he never made an impression on the athletic Frenchman. The judges scores were 118-110, 117-111 and a bizarre 115-113. Bouziane moves to 11-1 and would be better served defending his title for the time being. He showed good movement and speed but seems to lack power. Despite the one-sided nature of this bout, I can’t see Bouziane being a threat at world level and think he would struggle against a more aggressive style of opponent. Napa, meanwhile, must look at going back down to either flyweight or super-flyweight to rebuild his career. It’s become clear that his lack of size will count against up at bantamweight. The undercard... Featherweight prospect Akaash Bhatia kept his undefeated record with a one round knockout of Elemir Rafael on a quiet undercard. Bhatia moves to 14-0 and must be moved into British title level before his career stagnates any further than it already has done in the past 12 months. A shot against British champion Paul Appleby or Commonwealth champion John Simpson must be the target for the amiable Londoner. e-mail Dave Oakes

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The Audacity Of Imperfection

By Jeff Pryor

Being undefeated in the last year was not as enviable a position as it historically has been in the sport of boxing. For whatever reason, be it a first brush with tough competition, overconfidence or sheer karma, undefeated records were being waived off faster then a bout at Millennium Stadium.

If you had an "0" in your record at the beginning of 2008 and still have one now at the dawning of '09 you are one of the lucky few (Lucian Bute I'm looking your way). But, while losing your unblemished ledger is never an optimal situation in a sport where a single loss can devastate a career, not all losses are created equal. Here's a look at some of the more noteworthy first losses over the last year and who fares best and worst coming off that initial drawback. I've ordered the losses roughly in how damaging I feel they were, starting with the least.

Miguel Cotto: We won't no for sure until Cotto fights again just how much effect that first loss has had on him. What we do know is that status-wise, the effect has been very minimal. He is still considered a top twelve pound for pound fighter and his drawing power likely won't diminish one iota after the brutal fight of the year candidate that he and Margarito put on this past July. Mentally however, there could be residual effects from the TKO loss in which Cotto, a man accustomed to breaking wills, had his own busted in two. In the long run, being knocked flat on his back may have been better for Cotto, at least then he could say it was a great punch and leave it at that .Instead he will have to rectify within himself that he was forced to take a knee in the face of more punishment from the indomitable Margarito assault. If he can overcome that and get back to his winning ways against Michael Jennings and then even the score, a tall order, against Margarito later in the year, that first loss will be a faded blip on the radar.

Paul Williams: Getting blasted by looping overhand rights for 12 rounds against Carlos Quintana was not the best way to start out the year for Williams. Out of that loss however, something good came to the fore; Paul Williams can accept a loss like a man and move on. He didn't blame his performance on having to drain his 6'1" frame to 147lbs or cite the possibility of some nefarious poisoning scheme to which he was a victim, he just knocked Quintana cold within the first two and a half minutes of the rematch. Then laid out his next opponent inside a round, and then moved on to the Junior Middleweight division and grabbed a title. Does all that completely wipe out his listless, there-to-be-clocked-all-night performance from February of '08?....Not really, but sports fans are fickle. Boxing fans especially. And it's fair to say that Williams' star is pretty close to being back to where it was just after his career making turn against Margarito. If he can entice a showdown with Pavlik at 160lbs or Margarito late in the year, he will have solidified his position as one of the handful of fighters the sport's immediate future may rest on.

Juan Diaz: Nate Campbell out-Diazed Diaz. It must have been a sobering realization for "The Baby Bull" when it finally hit him, (probably within the first half of his inaugural losing effort), that the 36 year old fighter was outworking him. Heretofore Diaz was always pushing his opponent, delivering more than they could handle and generally dispiriting them with an avalanche of punches and energy. Campbell came in with the right plan and sapped that energy from the start, leveling shot after shot at the deceivingly soft midsection of Diaz, and crowding the kid close, making it a gritty in-fight. Like Cotto, Diaz, who is used to breaking his opponents will, was having the tables turned on him. Unlike Cotto, Diaz never broke and soldiered on to the bitter end with one eye entirely closed, his peeper garishly replaced by a nasty cut ripped across the eyelid drawn like a shutter. Like Williams, Diaz had no excuses and came back to form against Katsidis later in the year. Ironically, it is Campbell who is the forgotten man after their clash early in '08, while Diaz looks to have no lingering mental issues from the loss and should draw a packed house in his hometown when he participates in the biggest fight the division has to offer, in the first part of '09 against Juan Manuel Marquez.

Michael Katsidis: Being that his first loss was a legitimate fight of the year honors worthy candidate, he was mostly forgiven for the way he bounced off the floor after the crisp counter by Casamayor. Since then he's been in the ring with Juan Diaz. In that bout, a battle of once defeated pugilists, he again came up shy. I'm not sure any of that matters though. Katsidis is the kind of fighter that you want to see fight. He'll never be a pound for pound entrant, he may never rule a division, but when he fights... he fights. It's hard to imagine a match-up that wouldn't produce sparks with Katsidis in one of the corners. He needs a marquee win to get back in the mix, but as long as he brings it, there will be a place for him. A showdown with former belt holder David Diaz would be just the thing to propel one of the brawling bruisers back into the championship sweepstakes.

Sergio Mora: Still struggling for respect amongst hardcore boxing fans, on the heels of his upset championship win against Vernon Forrest, struggled mightily to make weight in the rematch, came in 2 pounds over and then looked like warmed up barf in the ring. Without a rematch against Forrest, which no one wants to see and "The Viper" is denying him, he may not immediately have the big fight he is looking for. As with all the other first time losers recently, winning is a cure for all. Among the exciting 154lb crop of prospects and contenders like Angulo, Kirkland (both of which have had brutal gym wars with Mora), as well as Vanes Martirosyan, John Duddy and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr there are some interesting match-ups to be had and a win against any of those names would catapult him back to the top of the division.

Kelly Pavlik: Hey, there are worse things you could do than to lose your undefeated record to ring legend, Bernard Hopkins. Still, the complete domination that the 43 year old "Executioner" foisted upon the Youngstown prize fighter raised eyebrows and called into question the validity of Pavlik's burgeoning super stardom in the sport. In fact, Pavlik may have been done a disservice by both his handlers and the boxing media in the build up to the fight where few gave Hopkins much chance, (the editor of this site and yours truly excluded, to gratuitously pat ourselves on he back) and in doing so raised highly unrealistic expectations for Pavlik. This made his eventual undoing that much more dramatic to the bewildered boxing world who had arrived at Atlantic city expecting to see the crowning of a new crossover superstar for the sport. All that said, a return to 160lbs and a dominating performance against Marco Antonio Rubio will wash much of the foul taste from the mouths of disenfranchised "Ghost" fans. Whatever may have been exposed in regards to the technical liabilities of Pavlik, no doubt his unwillingness to quit was on display too as he swung away in the 12th round as the final seconds of his undefeated career ticked away. Redemption for the blue collar fighter no doubt lies at the feet of Arthur Abraham in what would be a terrific battle between the two best 160lb fighters in the world. A win there and all is forgiven.

Amir Kahn: Few first losses were as quick, decisive and unexpected as Kahn's 1st round knock out loss to Breidis Prescott this past autumn. In 54 seconds a life was changed and a promise filled career derailed. Not just a prospect to be watched, many had tabbed the UK youngster to be a pound for pound force for years to come. As sometimes happens, little known Columbian prospects have other ideas. Kahn has already fought since, blasting out Oisin Fagan, however, little known Irish prospects rarely provide the same surprises their Columbian counterparts do. With his speed and technical abilities Kahn may yet prove to be the star once predicted, certainly in the UK he will maintain a strong following for the foreseeable future. The real questions will be answered when he is put back in with a dangerous puncher and the durability of his chin may be further tested.

Andy Lee- The future of the Middleweight division. Championship ready by the end of the year... hell... ready for Pavlik right now!! Well, as it turns out everyone got just a little ahead of themselves. Andy Lee's loss to Brian Vera on a night when ESPN's Friday Night Fights was frothing at the mouth with superlatives for the Irish import was a good reminder that everyone's the future of the sport until they lose, from the 1-0 starry eyed kid to the 16-0 darling, all it takes is one loss and you're damaged goods. Now Lee will likely have to work his way into a title shot, maybe not much, because he has Manny Steward's name to get him in the door, but it's no longer the cakewalk that it was shaping up to be. That punch that knocked Vera down in round one may have been the worst punch Lee ever threw; it gave him a false sense of confidence and invincibility. This one will be like all the rest... he must have thought. Vera wasn't like all the rest, he refused to play the part. And while cracking someone with everything you've got, again and again had always worked for Lee before, it just wasn't going to that time. Not that night. Not against that guy.

Among other first time losers Eddie Chambers, Sultan Ibragimov, Jean Pascal, Joachim Alcine, James McGirt Jr. and Aaron Williams are some of the more prominent. Each of them are fairly young and can likely work themselves back into position for bigger and better things. The key for their future success, much like those boxers listed above, will depend upon whether they learned from their losses or whether they have simply learned how to lose. Will Eddie Chambers continue to be satisfied with merely outclassing foe's, but not outworking? Will Ibragimov get more aggressive if that's what it takes? Will Jean Pascal work on defense as opposed to relying on athleticism? While the foe's that delivered the first losses to these newly imperfect fighters deserve much of the credit for their upheaval, for every name mentioned here, from the superstars to the prospects, the key to renewed success is internal. It's up to each to realize what their failings were and correct them as best they can.

One last chunk of food for thought on the undefeated woes of the newly defeated. Several notable fighters nearly (maybe should have) lost their perfect records over the course of the last year or so. Chad Dawson was pushed hard by Glen Johnson, but escaped with a hard fought victory, Joe Calzaghe survived a first round knockdown and scraped by with a lackluster split decision against Bernard Hopkins and Lucian Bute got a little help from his friends in Quebec after a hard-charging Librado Andrade had him literally holding on for dear life for much of the second half of the fight and groggily rising from the canvas as time expired. All of these fellows had a bad scare, and none of them wish to give their opponents rematches. Sometimes, in and out of the ring, you do what you've got to do to stay undefeated, such is the perceived value of that empty loss column. The fact that Dawson, Calzaghe and Bute are, along with , Arthur Abraham, Andre Berto and Ivan Calderon among the few major names left with an undefeated record in the sport says something about the level of matchmaking that's been going on over the last few years. Along with all those prize fighters listed above, just the year before we had prominent undefeated fighters like Ricky Hatton, Jermain Taylor, Mikkel Kessler, Allan Green, Edison Miranda, Tomasz Adamek and Librado Andrade. All went up against other undefeated fighters and came up a little short, but when two perfect records face off, something's got to give and it's to their credit that they took the challenge.

It would behoove the sport if everyone; from the fighters to the fans, the promoters to the networks, the trainers to the media, remember that a loss doesn't end a career, in most cases it makes the career all the more interesting. Outside of Marciano (and Floyd would like to think, himself) how many of the greatest prize fighters to ever live never lost? None. Zero. In the long run that statistical "0" is more important than the empty slot next to some undefeated flavor of the week, because it says that the greats took chances, challenged themselves and fought the best. When all is said and done, no great story can exist without a conflict within it's plot and often in life,and in boxing, it is a slight imperfection which makes things most interesting.

e-mail Jeff Pryor
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