Earlier this year British fight fans ended up feeling let down when the highly anticipated WBA/IBF Super Bantamweight title unification bout between Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg failed to really catch light. The bout had it’s moments but Quigg’s slow start left many feeling like the hype and talk had resulted in the bout under-delivering. Following that bout Frampton, the winner, vacated both titles to concentrate his focus on the Featherweight division.
Today we saw that IBF title vacancy being filled in a bout that more than made up for the damp squib that proceeded it. In fact we had an absolute thriller with blood, swelling, heart, knockdowns and some controversial calls from the referee all resulting in a genuinely memorable contest.
That bout saw Dominican slugger Jonathan Guzman (22-0-0-1, 22) successfully claim the title with an 11th round TKO win against a very gutsy, brave and tough Shingo Wake (20-5-2, 12).
The fight started with Guzman looking incredible. He started fast and full of energy and had success with his powerful shots as early as the opening round. Although Guzman won the opening round it was in round 2 when we saw just how strong and powerful he was as he scored 2 knock-downs against Wake and left the Japanese fighter with a serious cut under his right eye. The Dominican again dropped Wake in round 3 and then again in round 5. In fact Guzman twice dropped Wake in round 5, though one of those was scored well after a bell in a move that probably should have seen American referee Wayne Hedgepeth take a point from the Dominican.
With Wake in a huge hole on the scorecards, his face a bloody mess and his eye swelling shut it seemed Wake’s corner would have to pull their guy out of the fight before he ended up seriously injured. The fighter and his team however seemed to feel a change in the air, despite the late shot to end round 5, and Wake came out with a bounce in his step to start round 6. It was from that round that Wake began to find a home for his left hand and seemed to find a way to tag Guzman with some success, never enough to actually hurt the Dominican but enough to get a foothold in the bout, and subsequently damage Guzman’s eye into close,
Wake’s success seemed to grow more in round 7 and then again in round 8 as Guzman seemed to begin looking tired, and was having less effect when he tagged Wake. In fact in several rounds the Dominican seemed to back off as if he was either hurt and seriously running low on gas.
Wake’s fight back had closed the left eye of Guzman by the end of round 8 and in round 9 Wake again seemed to feel like he was breaking down a very tired looking Guzman, who was lucky not to have a knockdown scored against him in round 10 when he went down from what appeared to be a punch.
Despite the effort and Wake’s bravery he was unable to continue after he suffered a nasty cut to his left eye in round 11. A cut that immediately forced the referee to stop the bout and left the Japanese fighter in tears on the canvas, as if feeling all his effort had been for nought. For Guzman however the win has seriously announced him on the world stage, whilst also making it clear that he is flawed, he does perhaps lack the energy to fight at a high pace for 12 rounds and he can be made to look wild. Whilst Guzman is beatable in the second half of a fight, it’s going to take a very tough fighter to get that far, never mind beat him.
Scott Graveson covers the Asian boxing scene for www.asianboxing.info
