After
Shakur Stevenson's victory over William Zepeda on Saturday, Chris Mannix asked
Stevenson if he was pleased with his performance. And
Stephenson was emphatic that he was not. He said that he took more
punishment than he should have. He also credited Zepeda for making him reach
into his bag of tricks to pull out the win. Finally, and perhaps most
interestingly, he said he needed to go back to the drawing board and put on more muscle.
Now
you wouldn't understand Stevenson's point of view if you happened to agree with
the judges' wide scorecards in the fight, which had Shakur winning 118-108 x 2
and 119-109 to retain his lightweight title. I certainly didn't have the margin
that wide, and I'm betting that in Shakur's internal calculus, he didn't
either.
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Shakur celebrates after his victory
Photo courtesy of Sela |
I
scored the fight for Shakur 116-112, or eight rounds to four, but I had him down big after the fifth round. Through the first five rounds, most of the fight had been
contested on Zepeda's terms, with Stevenson pinned on the ropes and Zepeda launching
multi-punch combinations. Sure, Stevenson was avoiding many of the shots, but
he also wasn't throwing a lot either. In rounds where both fighters landed similar number of punches and there were no defining blows, I think that Zepeda should have been rewarded as the effective aggressor and for exhibiting superior ring generalship.
And
let's be clear: the fighter who was hurt the most at any time in the fight was
Stevenson, who was visibly dazed by a jab to the body/jab to the head combo in
the third round, where Shakur's legs temporarily gave out.
Stevenson got his tactics wrong during the first five rounds. It
reminded me of Mayweather-Maidana 1, where Floyd thought that he could effectively counter
Maidana from the ropes. Eventually, he realized that he was employing a losing strategy and adjusted.
Once Floyd and Shakur got off the ropes it was much smoother sailing.
In the sixth round, Shakur planted himself in the center of the
ring and had a lot of success. At that point I thought that he had figured Zepeda out. I didn't have Zepeda winning another round in the fight.
Stevenson's most impressive punch of the fight was his counter
right hook, which he landed repeatedly while Zepeda was coming forward. He also
showed impressive punch variation and sequencing: going to the body with both hands, flashing
uppercuts, and unspooling memorable combinations where he would pop Zepeda's
head from side to side.
In
a strange way, this 24th bout of Stevenson's career, where he was defending a
title in his third weight class, was his best learning fight as a professional.
He now knows that as talented as he is, he's not one of the blessed
few fighters who can consistently excel with his back to the ropes. He should also have much more confidence in his ability to take shots
to the body. Stevenson has been overly evasive in certain fights, moving too much and shying away from contact, but after withstanding Zepeda's best hooks
downstairs, Stevenson should have more belief in his ability to trade.
Overall,
it was a strong performance from Stevenson. He tested some things out and made
adjustments when they didn't work. He was determined to fight his way to
victory and he realized where he was at his best in the ring. Mission accomplished.
***
The
fourth round of the Hamzah Sheeraz-Edgar Berlanga fight featured thrilling combat. Both fighters decided that they were
going to open up and trade. They were at mid-range, which in theory should have
favored the more compact, shorter-armed puncher, Berlanga, but it was Sheeraz who landed the devastating punches during exchanges. In a sequence in the second half of the round, he battered Berlanga with hooks from both hands, dropping him to the canvas. And after Berlanga made it to his feet, Sheeraz splattered him again, this time face-first on the canvas.
Now, many fighters would have stayed down at that point and perhaps ref David Fields
or Berlanga's corner should have stopped the fight, but Berlanga,
to his credit, rose to his feet and wanted to continue. The fight was stopped
early in the fifth as soon as Sheeraz landed his first combination of the round.
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Sheeraz after his knockout win
Photo courtesy of Sela |
There's
very little that surprised me in the fight, but that's also because I've
watched enough of Sheeraz to know that he can be a devastating puncher when
he's right. However, many were first exposed to the Englishman Sheeraz during his last fight, a high-profile middleweight title shot against Carlos Adames.
If you
believed Sheeraz's side of the story for what transpired that night, that he injured his hand during the bout and
he also had been experiencing problems making weight, then his flat
performance in the fight (which was ruled a draw) made sense. If you didn't
believe in what Sheeraz was selling, then those "fraud"
warnings started ringing in your head. Well, Sheeraz answered those doubters on
Saturday.
Even moving up a division, Sheeraz
is still physically huge for 168 lbs. He packs a punch. He can beat
an opponent with half-a-dozen weapons. I do have concerns about his
chin in a division filled with big hitters, but that's a question to be
answered another day.
There's no one who improved his stock more on Saturday's
Ring III card than Sheeraz did. He's a real threat.
***
The
vagaries of boxing judging: How can one make any overarching conclusions
regarding the scorecards in the fights between David Morrell-Imam Khataev (Morrell via split decision) and Alberto
Puello-Subriel Matias (Matias via majority decision)? In the first fight, the aggressor dazzled with
hooks, scored a knockdown, but lost to a counterpuncher who had impressive
15-20 second flurries here and there. In the second fight, the judges rewarded
the aggressor, Matias, despite a significant fade in the second half where he was eating a steady diet of power shots.
All
I can say to fighters and their teams is not to leave it close. In a given
panel of judges, you can have individuals who are drawn to clean work and
others who tend to favor the aggressor. I wouldn't say that either decision on Saturday was
a robbery, but I had the losers (Khataev and Puello) winning, and they had
almost exact opposite styles.
In fights as close as these, an outcome can swing on a fine margin. Khataev
started the 10th round excellently: coming forward, landing power hooks, and backing Morrell up. However, there's no mistaking that Morrell had
him badly hurt during the last 20 seconds of the round (this bout was a 10-rounder).
Had Khataev been able to avoid those final shots, he wins the 10th, and would
have swung the fight on Allen Nace's 95-94 scorecard for Morrell, giving Khataev a split decision victory.
I'll
close with a couple of additional points about David Morrell and Alberto Puello. Morrell was considered by
many in the PBC orbit to be a boxing prodigy, and maybe he was. He was fast-tracked and given a shot at David Benavidez in just
his 12th pro fight. Despite Morrell's athletic and technical gifts, his lack of professional experience especially as it related to his decision-making in the ring was evident during the fight. Morrell had his share of moments during the bout and he fought hard, but he was comprehensively beaten.
Against Khataev, a power puncher who was also a successful amateur,
Morrell again displayed massive holes in his defense and didn't seem to
understand where and when he was having success in the fight. He wanted to be a
crafty counterpuncher, but he got hit a lot and dropped. Yet whenever he did
lead, he was infinitely more successful.
It's
not a question of Morrell being caught between styles; it's more that he has
yet to understand his ring identity. He doesn't grasp what he does
best against top competition. And it's a shame that he has to learn on the job in his tougher fights because he lacked seasoning prior to
Benevidez. Yes, he did skate by with a split decision win on Saturday, but his
performance was far from convincing. Facing a fighter a step down from
Benavidez's caliber, Morrell didn't display improvement. His
athleticism and hand speed are still there, but he is still way off the mark in
terms of understanding the finer details of how he can succeed as a
professional boxer.
And finally, although I do feel that Alberto Puello was hard done by the judges on Saturday, especially in a fight where he entered as the champion, part of his problem on Saturday was his own doing. Puello fights in a style
that will turn off specific judges. He is the anti-aggressor. He backs up
incessantly. He likes to maneuver with his back on the ropes. There are
three problems with his approach:
- He
lacks power
- His
shots aren't always easy to see land
- Effective
aggression is a scoring criterion that will always work against him.
If
Puello had fight-changing power, then it would be much easier to evaluate his
work in real time. But he doesn't, and familiar patterns emerge in his fights: He's backed into a corner or along the ropes. He lands some shots but also is
taking some. Neither guy really looks hurt after an exchange. Furthermore, in
these scenarios where close rounds exist (and Puello fights always have
numerous swing rounds) judges will reward effective aggression to the
come-forward boxer, which isn't Puello.
Prior
to Saturday, Puello had three split decisions victories in his biggest fights.
Those results were coin flips, with some that he could have lost. It's not that
his defeat to Matias on Saturday was some type
of cosmic payback for the rest of the junior welterweight division, but it illustrated a problem that Puello has: separation,
both figuratively and literally. Puello's fights are almost always close. And
in 7-5, 6-6 type of fights, judges can go any which way. He lacks the defining
power and sequences of punches that lead to definitive rounds.
Furthermore,
Puello, as good as he is in retreat, couldn't keep the hyper-aggressive Matias off
him. Again, this is a structural problem with Puello as a fighter. He doesn't believe in or
rely on his jab enough. He lets opponents in too easily without making them pay a
price. Yes, Puello likes his short hooks to the body and flashy uppercuts, but
these happen during exchanges where his opponents are already right on top of
him throwing their own punches. He doesn't get enough distance on a consistent basis.
Puello's making things too difficult for
himself. He must learn to utilize his jab more effectively and circle the ring
instead of operating against the ropes or in corners. Otherwise, he will continue to be reliant on the generosity of a given judging panel, which as we've seen, could go
this way or that.
Puello needs to take more initiative in his own fights and in his career because his fight style leaves himself twisting in the wind after 12 hard rounds. In a sport that defers to the proclivities of a random judging panel, there's no uniformity on what defines doing just enough to win. Puello has been leaving it too close for comfort and he finally paid the price on Saturday. It's a tough way to sustain a career, always hoping for mercy from three random individuals.
He's a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Panel, the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.
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