JÜRGEN BRÄHMER W12 DMITRIY SUKHOTSKY

Every so often what looks like a routine title defence becomes a life and death struggle for the champion. It happened in Germany on Saturday when Jürgen Brähmer had to survive a bad cut over the right eye and a 10th round from hell to win a unanimous but bitterly hard-earned points win over Russia’s unheralded Dmitriy Sukhotsky.

This gruelling, bloody battle was yet another outstanding fight in a year that has been full of them worldwide. I can’t remember a year with so many gripping contests.

Brähmer was a deserved winner, with scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 118-110 in this WBO light-heavy title bout, but, my goodness, he had to dig deep for it.

Sukhotsky was a revelation. I hadn’t seen him before, but this rugged Russian could fight. Staggered by a left hand from Brähmer’s southpaw stance in the second round, he came back strongly, taking the fight to the German boxer, driving the right hand through the middle. He had come to win, and I noted in the third round: “S. really fancies this.”

Brähmer isn’t one to back away from a fight and soon he was meeting Sukhotsky head to head, shoulder to shoulder. It was tough and punishing. Sukhotsky kept a tight defence and his right hand was a constant threat, Brähmer landed some heavy left hands to body and head but he couldn’t get any really big, decisive shots through Sukhotsky’s stonewall defence and thus had to belabour him around the side of his opponent’s guard.

When Brähmer was sliced over the right eye in the ninth round it seemed as if the fight might be in danger of getting away from him, and worse was to come when he was caught and hurt by a series of punches in the 10th. Backed up on the ropes, blood flowing from the cut over his right eye and under brutal pressure, Brähmer was hanging by a thread. He got a break when the referee, Michael Ortega, called for a time out for the doctor to examine the cut over Brähmer’s eye. Brähmer was able to gather himself, and he was steaming right back at Sukhotsky before the round was over.

Did referee Ortega incorrectly interrupt Sukhotsky’s 10th-round offensive? Well, a fight can be decided by inches, so to say, and in this case the inches were in Brähmer’s favour. Brähmer was in trouble, but he seemed in possession of his faculties. He didn’t have that worrying, falling-apart look, it was just that he didn’t seem able to get off the ropes. He was getting hit and he wasn’t fighting back, but it almost looked to me as if Brähmer, tough individual that he is, was waiting for Sukhotsky to punch himself out. Some referees, I am sure, would have stopped the fight, and Ortega was watching closely. Meanwhile the German fighter’s face was what older-generation writers would have described as a bloody mess due to the cascade from Brähmer’s cut. What does the referee do? Wave the fight over and have Brähmer yell: “What are you doing, I’m OK” or does he get the cut checked? Ortega decided to call in the doctor. It was one of those judgement calls on which an outcome can be decided.

Brähmer, in a time of crisis, showed the guts and determination of a true fighter. He not only rallied, but in the last round he was backing up and battering Sukhotsky in a hard-driving finish. He won the fight on grit, conditioning and his greater experience: Brähmer had been in long, hard championship fights before, Sukhotsky hadn’t. I was more than a bit worried at the amount of hard, clean punches that Brähmer was taking, but when the chips were down he came through, and he did so in a manner that won’t soon be forgotten by those lucky enough to have seen this authentic war of attrition.