MONDAY EVENING UPDATE

The best and the worst of boxing was on view this past weekend.

The best was the incredible fight for the European light-middleweight title on Friday in Bolton that saw Ryan Rhodes come back from a terribly shaky start to stop Jamie Moore in seven dramatic rounds.

The worst was yet another of boxing’s mixed-up results, with Francois Botha having his hand raised in victory over Pedro Carrion in Germany when the fight was in reality a draw.

The big event, though, was Tomasz Adamek destroying Andrew Golota in the “Polish Fight of the Century” in Lodz on Saturday, with an estimated 10 million viewing audience watching on Polsat.

Let’s start with the 12-rounder between Botha and Carrion for the World Boxing Foundation heavyweight belt.

I joined the fight in the fourth round of German network DSF’s coverage.

Carrion, a 39-year-old former Cuban amateur international competitor who now lives in Germany, dominated the fight although he had point docked for a low blow.

It really wasn’t all that close, to me, although I did think that Botha eked out the 11th round. Amazingly, Botha not only got a draw but initially it appeared he was the winner.

There was astonishing confusion.

The MC did indeed announce scores that gave the result as a draw.

Here is what happened, as confirmed by watching the YouTube video of the MC's announcement.

The announcement was in German, true, but it was easy to tell that the first two scores that were announced were scores of a draw. Surely this is as clear as day.

Only the LAST score that was announced was in favour of Botha.

However, the MC, after reading out the first two scores, read out the last score and said "für Botha", whereupon referee Ian John-Lewis lifted Botha's arm.

What the MC meant, surely, was that the LAST SCORE was "for Botha" and not that the DECISION was "for Botha".

This ring announcer obviously was not a boxing guy.

He was chosen, probably, because of his bearing and the quality of his voice.

This person had no idea, clearly, of the correct way to read the scores.

What Michael Buffer or Jimmy Lennon Jr. would have done would have been to announce the Botha winning score first, then announce the other two scores and conclude with "... The decision is a majority draw!"

An unfortunate mess.

Any reports on English-websites websites that had Botha winning must have been a case of human error.

Let me say that even the decision of a draw was very unfair on Carrion. The 6ft 8in Cuban is a fighter of limited talent, but he was doing what little fighting there was.

Botha leaned away with hands down, lobbed over an occasional right hand, clinched, threatened and posed. Carrion prodded away with his long-reaching left jab, occasionally belaboured Botha on the ropes and slapped him around a bit.

The ageing “White Buffalo” didn’t get hurt — he knows how to get through 12-rounders with fighters of Carrion’s ability-level — but he surely didn’t do enough to get a draw. Even Botha had the good grace to appear embarrassed, saying words to the effect of: “Well, the judges scored it the way they saw it.” (These words were said when Botha was under the impression that he had been awarded the decision).

Botha showed a swollen right hand during the post-fight interview. It now appears the hand was broken early in the fight. Give the old warrior credit for bluffing his way through the 12 rounds, but for me he clearly lost the fight despite what the scorecards tell us.

Carrion stalked out of the ring when Botha’s arm was raised. The crowd booed in disbelief.

I keep saying, ad nauseam, that when a fight goes to the cards you have to hold your breath, but the draw decision astonished me. A verdict in Botha's favour would have been almost beyond belief.

As they say: “If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.”

When boxing is at its best, though, it is a fabulous sport, as shown when the 32-year-old Ryan Rhodes upset the odds by stopping Jamie Moore in the seventh round of what surely will be Britain’s Fight of the Year last Friday.

It looked all over in the early rounds as Moore stormed in and hammered away with jabs, hooks and uppercuts from his southpaw stance, scoring to body and head. Rhodes refused to be swept away by the storm, though, and by the fourth the seasoned switch-hitter was getting into the fight, backing off Moore with a solid right-hand shot from the orthodox stance.

By the sixth it was a bitter struggle for Moore, with Rhodes scoring sharply, and his right hooks from the southpaw stance were hurting the defending champion to the body.

The fight turned in the seventh, suddenly and sensationally, as Rhodes, boxing in the southpaw position, caught the oncoming Moore with a perfectly timed right hook. When Moore tottered before going down one sensed that he was not going to be able to rally from such a blow. Although Moore gamely threw punches after taking the eight count it was a last-gasp effort, and when Rhodes blasted him with a huge right hand from the orthodox posture it was in effect the end of the fight, with Moore sagging on the ropes from the follow-up barrage to bring referee Howard Foster’s intervention.

A riveting fight with an unexpected ending as a proud veteran stuck to his guns and came through on experience, willpower and old-fashioned guts. Who could ask for more?

Tomasz Adamek looked very sharp in his first fight as a heavyweight as he outclassed and beat up Andrew Golota in the big fight in Poland.

I had expected a long, wearing-down type of stoppage win for Adamek, but he found the plodding, 256-pound Golota an easy target and just kept hitting him for the fifth-round victory.

Down in the first round and cut over the left eye, Golota tried to make a fight of it but he was just too slow. He was getting hit by combinations to head and body that came too fast and too often. I don’t think anyone would have blamed Golota had he surrendered when Adamek spilled him to the canvas again in the fifth, but the bloodied 41-year-old came back for more until referee Bill Clancy pulled the plug with a kindly: “Good job, Andrew.” Golota hadn’t bent the rules and he had taken his lumps, and at this stage of his career I don’t think anyone could have asked for more.

In the only U.S. TV fight of the weekend, I was amazed that one judge gave Al Seeger seven of the eight completed rounds in his NABF 122-pound title defence against the unbeaten Puerto Rican Victor Fonseca in Friday’s ShoBox co-feature.

This seemed like a closely fought, highly competitive fight to me and I had the boxers level after eight rounds. A series of big left hands from Fonseca’s southpaw stance took it out of the judges’ hands in the ninth, just when I thought that Seeger had taken over the fight.

Seeger, boxing for the first time after an opponent’s death, seemed to be coming on strongly, and his right hands to the body were clearly bothering Fonseca.

Boxing can be cruel, though, and Seeger got caught and hurt when he must have thought that victory was within his grasp, although I give Fonseca credit for finally showing urgency in a fight that was slipping away. I have to agree with the opinion of Showtime analyst Steve Farhood that for the first eight rounds Fonseca was “underwhelming”, but the finishing onslaught was impressive.