JOEL CASAMAYOR TKO10 MICHAEL KATSIDIS

Jack Dempsey supposedly made the remark “I forgot to duck” after losing to Gene Tunney. On Saturday night, Michael Katsidis forgot to duck and a fight he seemed poised to win ended in spectacular defeat against veteran Joel Casamayor in their lightweight title thriller on HBO.

It was one of those so near, so far, scenarios for the game Aussie of Greek ancestry.

Down twice in the first round, cut under the right eye and over the left eye, nose bloodied, blood inside the mouth, Katsidis had slugged his way back with sufficient success to have been one point ahead on two judges’ scorecards after nine rounds.

Then, charging ahead recklessly in the 10th, he walked onto the big left hand from Casamayor’s southpaw stance that ended the fight in an instant.

Although Katsidis beat the count he was out in his feet, and referee Jon Schorle correctly intervened after Casamayor had landed a right hook. Katsidis was defenceless. There was still a long way to go in the round — two minutes, 30 seconds on the clock. Katsidis, I fear, would have got knocked down again had he been allowed to continue. There was no point in letting him take needless punishment.

Katsidis had almost snatched victory from what looked like certain defeat after surviving a first round from hell, when Casamayor couldn’t miss him with the left hand.

Fighters have come back from horrendous first rounds, famously Archie Moore against Yvon Durelle and more recently Juan Manuel Marquez in the gruelling draw with Manny Pacquiao. I was ringside when Rafael Ruelas came back from two first-round knockdowns to outlast Freddie Pendleton; Michael Grant looked out of the fight when dropped twice in the first round by Andrew Golota but came back to win. It can be done, and for a while Katsidis looked like doing it.

HBO analyst Max Kellerman conjured up the image of Rocky Marciano rallying from a first-round knockdown to knock out Jersey Joe Walcott, but oftentimes, it seems to me, when a commentator makes a remark on those lines the reverse happens, as it did here: it was Casamayor who scored the late KO.

Casamayor’s vast experience saw him through. Hurt to the body, then punched, off-balance, through the ropes in the sixth round, penalised a point for a low blow in the ninth, he was under heavy pressure. His savvy, conditioning and inherent toughness got him through some rocky rounds.

By the ninth I thought the fight might be starting to turn back in Casamayor’s favour, not so much because he was suddenly boxing as brilliantly as he had in the first couple of rounds but because Katsidis was not coming at him with the same busy-punching intensity.

Instead of crowding forward with hands high and letting the punches go when he got up close, Katsidis was starting to wing away with long, wide right hands and hooks, thus giving the 36-year-old Cuban the chance to hit him flush on the chin.

It was a sensational finish but, to me, not a classic one. It wasn’t like Sugar Ray Robinson timing the left hook that flattened Gene Fullmer: Casamayor, back to the ropes, let a left hand fly as Katsidis was throwing wild, roundhouse punches, and he connected. It was more, I thought, an instinctive type of punch from Casamayor than one that had been carefully thought out — but it certainly got the job done.

There will always be a place for Katsidis on TV because he is such a crowd pleaser, but the lack of defence, the tendency to get cut and swollen around the eyes and, perhaps, not a very reliable chin, suggest that his limit may have been reached.

Casamayor, meanwhile, showed there is still plenty of life left in him after he seemed to be on his last legs in the lacklustre win over Jose Armando Santa Cruz. However, from the fourth round onwards he was in a life and death struggle with a limited opponent and it was far from certain he would have won had he not landed the big left. He pulled out the win, and he deserves all the credit in the world for doing so, but the rawness of the Aussie gave the old pro the chance to save the day. There was relief as well as exultation on the faces of Casamayor’s excited entourage after the fight.