Reports

Sometimes, when a fighter gets knocked out he can make an adjustment in strategy and come back to win the return bout.
 
Terry Norris did this when he boxed intelligently to outscore Simon Brown in their rematch; Chiquita Gonzalez switched to a smart-boxing style when, after Michael Carbajal knocked him out in a war, he twice outpointed Carbajal in subsequent meetings.
 

After a worryingly slow start, Japan’s Toshiaki Nishioka showed his class in winning a unanimous decision over Rafael Marquez in an excellent main event on Fox Deportes from Las Vegas on Saturday night. It was the first time a Japanese boxer has successfully defended a world title in the U.S. as Nishioka retained his 122-pound belt.
 
I enjoyed this fight. Marquez put up a gritty, competent challenge but Nishioka was just a bit too fast for him. Marquez’s punch-anticipation at 36 isn’t what it used to be, and he just didn’t seem to see the punches coming as Nishioka fired in sharp left hands from his southpaw stance. Marquez stood up to Nishioka’s best shots, though.

Say what you will about the Klitschko brothers but they have faced all comers in their dominance of the heavyweight division. Although Tomasz Adamek stood no chance in Saturday’s title fight in Poland he had earned the right to be there — it was just that Vitali Klitschko was too big, too strong and too good.
 
I don’t know quite why Jim Lampley brought Rocky Marciano into the commentary with his suggestion that Marciano somehow fought inferior opposition, mentioning the name of Roland LaStarza.

Great fight, pity about the refereeing.  Russell Mora, normally a sound official, had a bad night last night in his handling of the thrilling bantamweight title bout on Showtime that saw Abner Mares, aided by what appeared to be benevolent refereeing, defeat Joseph Agbeko by majority decision.
 
There was no real argument about who had scored the greater number of points. The computer statistics showed that Mares had thrown and landed more punches and landed more power punches — a “power” punch being anything other than a jab.

Fans had a winner and loser in Saturday’s big fights on each side of the pond— a rousing battle for the British heavyweight title that saw underdog Tyson Fury defeat Dereck Chisora and a big-fight flop in Las Vegas as Amir Khan ran right over a confused and intimidated Zab Judah in five rounds.
 
As we now say, I’m taking nothing away from Khan, but Judah was a major disappointment: This was a fighter who declared himself “150% ready”; the “new” Zab Judah, he said, was a “monster”.

Well, was it such a dreadful decision? I have reviewed the video of the controversial featherweight title fight between Jonathan Barros and Celestino Caballero, scrutinised the judges’ round-by-round scores and come to the conclusion that the fairest result would have been a draw.
 
This is a minority view. Almost everyone believes that Caballero was flat out robbed, that Barros got the ultimate in hometown decisions in his Mendoza backyard. The Argentinean TyC television network scorer had Panama’s Caballero winning. Caballero scored two knockdowns, one in the opening round, another in the ninth. Case closed? Not really — at least not in my view.
 

It wasn’t exactly dramatic but Saul Alvarez nevertheless gave an accomplished display in outclassing British veteran Ryan Rhodes in their junior middleweight title bout on Saturday night in Mexico. Alvarez is still learning his craft at just 20 years of age, but to make a fighter of Rhodes’s experience look as if he didn’t belong in the same ring stamped ‘Canelo’ as a bit special.
 
Rhodes gave his best effort but it was never going to be enough. It was Alvarez who looked like the more seasoned fighter because he was treating Rhodes almost like a sparring partner.