WEEKEND REVIEW: Martin D10 Kennedy and more

After the rather dull year-opener main event between Dyah Davis and Alfonso Lopez, Friday Night Fights served up a scorching 10-rounder in the junior featherweight division as Teon Kennedy battled to a spirited draw against Christopher Martin.
 
The two last-fight losers gave their all, and no one can ask for more. I love these fights of contrasting styles. Kennedy lived up to the gutsy, hard-fighting Philadelphia tradition. He was aggressive and he was the busier man. Martin, I thought, landed most of the really solid shots. The boxer from San Diego is what old-timers would have called a cutie. He is very good at slipping, blocking and rolling away from punches. Martin did some really classy scoring as he landed punches and then pulled out of range to have Kennedy missing. Kennedy wouldn’t be denied, though, and when he got Martin on the ropes his punch-volume had to be rewarded.
 
I believe Martin could have won had he gone to the jab a bit more often. He seemed to be concentrating a bit too much on being punch-perfect, and while he waited, Kennedy was swarming all over him. I have to refer Martin to a piece of advice the great Mickey Duff gave to fighters back in the day in the U.K.: “When in doubt — jab.”
 
In Germany, Robert Stieglitz showed an impressive workrate to defeat Henry Weber widely on points in a WBO super middleweight title defence but I was impressed with the toughness and guts shown by the far less experienced challenger. Weber landed some good body punches and showed a nice jab and right uppercut but Stieglitz’s seasoning, smarts and especially his hand speed were too much for him — Weber kept his gloves up but couldn’t block them all. Once or twice — especially in the 10^th round — Weber seemed in danger of being overwhelmed, but he always came back firing.
 
Although Weber suffered a bloody nose I don’t think he took what could be called excessive punishment. In fights such as this, when a boxer is in the late rounds and still making an earnest effort, a referee will usually give him the chance to go the distance although I know that the British TV commentators were getting anxious when Stieglitz was rattling off his quick combinations.
 
Arthur Abraham’s predictable stoppage win over Argentina’s Pablo Farias was a typical King Arthur performance — look dreadful for two, three or four rounds, then start exploding with big, heavy blows.
 
Farias showed much more movement than I had expected. Usually, from what I have seen of him, Farias stays in front of his opponent. It seemed to me that he had worked hard on being mobile for this fight, throwing punches in a bustling manner and scooting away. To me, though, there was an air of inevitability about it all: It was just a matter of Abraham adjusting the sights on his big guns. Even when Abraham was missing, it appeared to me that alarm showed on Farias’s countenance, a look that said: “I don’t want to get caught with one of those!”
 
Once Abraham started to unlimber the heavy artillery the Argentinean boxer quickly crumpled, but Farias gave it a good go for four rounds in a fight that was made for Abraham to get a KO. One of my website subscribers in Australia who bet on Abraham to win in rounds 4-6 was delighted with Farias’s showing which, for him, worked out perfectly.
 
Shane McPhilbin’s last-round win over Leon Williams to capture the British cruiserweight title showed that, simply by the act of enduring, a boxer can achieve wonderful things. (Maybe that applies to everyday existence, for those who see boxing as a metaphor for life.)
 
Londoner Williams was known as a flawed banger in his amateur days and this has carried over to his professional career. When Williams’s big right hand dropped McPhilbin in the opening round the fight looked as good as over. McPhilbin survived, but Williams dominated the fight for most of the next 10 rounds. Coming out for the last round, Williams just had to stand up to win, but then he got caught and fell apart.
 
McPhilbin, from Nottinghamshire in the English midlands, was emotional in the post-fight interview as he paid tribute to a father who always believed in him but passed away without having had the opportunity to celebrate his son’s big moment. It reminded me of Northern Ireland’s Terry Milligan weeping on the winner’s rostrum many years ago after winning a Commonwealth Games amateur gold medal while Danny Boy played over the PA system. 

Fights and nights such as these, the nip-and-tuck bouts such as Kennedy versus Martin, the heart and steadfastness of the Henry Webers of this world, are a reason why boxing is endlessly and mysteriously fascinating for those of us who have followed it through the years, or, to quote promoter Cedric Kushner: “The trouble with boxing is that once you get in, you can’t get out.”