‘How To Box’ by Joe Louis: Part 5 – Defense

Published

2 years ago

May 18, 2023

‘How To Box’ by Joe Louis: Part 5 – Defense

He was a master on defense.”—Nat Fleischer

The judgment of the founder of The Ring magazine is not to be ignored but nor can it be allowed to go unremarked that many of his most prestigious contemporaries disagreed with him, some quite vehemently. The great newspaperman Grantland Rice was amongst them:

“On the defensive side there is still a lapse between mind and muscle. A break in an important co-ordination.”

I have sympathy with both points of view. Louis is at heart an offensive machine. This is something of a cliché, but where certain high-end boxers are concerned—Dempsey, Louis, Tyson—it is applicable. Offensive machines are limited in defense, traditionally, a situation which is entirely natural. Getting the punches across becomes the most important thing for these men and in turn that determination makes the opponent nervous about punching—this is the first line of defense for any great hitter and Louis was no different. It was a brave man who planted his feet when sharing the ring with him. Nevertheless, even the most aggressive of boxers must have solid defensive technique to become successful at the highest level. As described in Part One—The Foundation of Skill, Joe laid some of the nuts and bolts of these techniques bare in How to Box, the manual released in his name after his triumphant return bout with Jersey Joe Walcott. Through Parts Two, Three and Four we’ve taken a close look at Joe Louis on offense using Joe’s ghost-written instructions in tandem with a detailed look at Louis on film, and putting defense under the microscope is going to be no different. In the other corner for this most difficult subject is one of Joe’s most difficult opponents—Jersey Joe Walcott.

Speaking in 1941 of the then absolutely primed version of Joe Louis, Billy Conn’s trainer Johnny Ray said before Louis-Conn I:

“You guys have got it all wrong. You don’t box Joe Louis. You can put all the boxers you like in front of him and he’ll find them. No, you need to fight Joe Louis. You need to fight Louis every minute of every round, you need someone who can take his punches and give him some back. That’s how you beat him.”

The great Conn came within touching distance of doing just that before succumbing to the inevitable. Now Walcott set out to find a combination of the two strategies described in Ray’s informed outburst that would be the past-prime champion’s undoing. His mission statement was nothing less than the literal perfection of boxing’s defining mission statement, one that will be repeated a thousand times in gyms across the world this very day in one form or another: hit and don’t be hit. Walcott spent fleeting, desperate moments in the pocket always looking for the exit just before Louis hit his stride, exchanged with him at distance but always trying to force Louis to lead in unfavourable moments, then vanishing in a series of sudden, unpredictable moves that left a fuming Louis resetting his stance over and over again. Louis does not seem to have landed a single straight right hand of real import in the twenty-six rounds spent in Walcott’s company. Readers of Part Three will understand the significance of this.

Jersey Joe stretched Louis to the absolute limit on offense but also on defence and in all likelihood it is amongst his worst performances in this regard, but this is a fight I wanted to take a closer look at before this series was concluded. So, I’m breaking one of my own rules and examining a fight of which apparently only highlights have survived—Louis-Walcott I.

In the opening moments of that fight’s first round, Louis demonstrates his most crucial defensive skill, the slip. In How to Box this is described as a technique “used against straight leads and counters. As your opponent leads with his left, shift your body about five or six inches to the right of the blow, making it fall harmlessly over your shoulder…sometimes it is only necessary to move your head to slip a punch.”

This is a key skill for Louis and one that allowed him to consistently out-jab opponents over the course of his career, even those who out-reached him.

After being caught with two clipping Walcott jabs early, Louis slipped the third in this manner. What is crucial to note about the Louis defence is that it is built specifically to facilitate offense. After the punch is slipped, How to Box tells us that we should find ourselves in position “for a blow to his unprotected left side.” This is the theory, in practice Louis comes out of the slip to throw a punch at Walcott’s right side before following it up with a short straight. It is Louis’ early warning that the angles Walcott will be showing will not be of the type he has been shown in the gym.

It’s also an early lesson in the way that Louis wove his complete offense together with his less astonishing defence to create a pattern of deterrent that affected every opponent he ever met.

Moments later, Walcott tried his first serious left hook and Louis demonstrated the duck. “Bend forwards at the waist, ducking his blow. As soon as you have ducked his blow, straighten up and at the same time counter with a blow to your opponent.”

Louis pulls this counter off beautifully, following a left uppercut to the body with a clubbing right hand around the back of Walcott’s head as Jersey Joe, already rocking a little, tries for his own duck. He doesn’t quite make it and backs up before unveiling the two-step that would cause Louis trouble all night, going away and coming back with a punch (usually a right), one big, horrible feint that Louis will fail to unpick in either fight. Later, swarming Walcott back to his own corner, Louis comes square and continues to throw blows even as Walcott blocks them on his gloves. Here we see the elemental weakness in the Louis defence—it is all but abandoned when he is in the full flow of an attack. Most offensive machines share this weakness. It is born of the absolute surety that exists in this extremely rare breed of fighter that they can outpunch any opponent, and that exchanges are therefore to be sought.

After going back to his boxing in the second, Louis shows a nice parry in the third. The champion’s curious habit of occasionally keeping his gloves tightly knitted at his chest is not entirely a matter of preparing his offense; it also allows him to move the “unit” the two gloves create up or down to catch straight blows that do not leave the opponent available for a counter. Nor does How to Box stress counterpunching after blocking blows. On occasions where the guard is made mobile to block opposition punches, the priority seems to move over to defence, perhaps the reason Louis did not use this strategy often. He can be seen primarily as a slipper and ducker of punches rather than a parrying or blocking fighter due to the lack of natural countering opportunities these earlier methods provide when compared to the latter, although such opportunities can of course be engineered. Early in the ninth Louis did exactly that. As Walcott moved forward and fired two-handed, Louis showed good flexibility, lifting his forearms which worked as an additional guard as Louis performed the block as described in How to Box:

“As your opponent leads, turn your body…If your opponent leads with a blow to the chin, use your shoulder to block it.”

Louis turns with this two-handed attack, tucking in his chin and lifting the relevant shoulder on each turn and when to his own surprise, Walcott “pops up” behind these shots right in Joe’s kill zone he improvises a pivoted hook which catches Jersey Joe on the mouth, helping him win the round.

In the fourteenth he can be seen parrying a Walcott jab and then firing off his own, not quite generating a counter but using his defence to neutralise a rare Jersey Joe lead before taking advantage and landing his own punch.

The fifteenth round of Louis-Walcott I may not be a round that in particular brings to mind matters of defence as Walcott ran and Louis chased him, but actually it is one of Joe’s better defensive rounds. He parries a Walcott jab in his very first action and slips two more before throwing his first punch, a left hook which glances off Walcott’s head. Louis is trying to box noticeably closer to Walcott now and his defence is paramount. Walcott spent most of the final round retreating and flashing up unpredictable punches when cornered or desperate, but Louis deals with most of these before firing back. Mobile and hard to hit, Louis demonstrates the truth of Johnny Ray’s statement of 1941 and his own immortal line before the Louis-Conn rematch: they can run, but they can’t hide.

The decision for this fight was by far and away the most controversial of The Bomber’s career and to this day the word used to describe it is “robbery.” For as long as we are discussing the fight, I have decided to take a brief look of my own at what seems at times to be established fact.

The 2012 Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight will be, for many, the benchmark robbery for a generation. This is a result so seemingly without explanation that of the one-hundred and twenty-five media sources I have seen produce a scorecard we have one-hundred and twenty-one scoring in favour of Pacquiao, three scoring in favour of Bradley, and one scoring the fight a draw. That is a ratio of around about 1:30 against those seeing the fight any other way than a win for Pacquiao.

The Pittsburgh Press conducted a ringside poll of writers at the venue the night Louis decisioned Walcott and whilst the majority, twenty-four, had Jersey Joe the winner, some sixteen had it for Louis. This is a ratio of 2:3 against.

One media source reports a Bradley win for every thirty polled.

Two media sources report a Louis win for every five polled.

The point is not that Pacquiao was robbed and so Louis was not, the point is that those who did not see a win for Pacquiao in the first Bradley fight can be dismissed as statistical anomalies—they either made mistakes or sat in a corner of the stadium that would always give birth to a strange scorecard. In the case of Louis, he is backed by sixteen boxing men who know the fight game. If we include the judges amongst those polled, the difference between those who see it for Louis and those who see it for Walcott starts to look more negligible.

The widest media scorecard I have been able to source for Louis-Walcott was the AP card which had it 9-5-1 for Walcott. I was unable, as a primary source to uncover more than three ringside card that had Walcott winning any more than eight rounds. Those who stood in judgment over Louis in a surprisingly rabid press that following week typically did so based on a scorecard provided for them by a ringside reporter that had Walcott winning only six, seven or eight rounds. This is exactly what almost every single ringsider has Louis scoring.

But most interesting to me were the reports made by the two sources which, rightly or wrongly, hold the most weight in my mind when it comes to deducing the reality where close, un-filmed fights are concerned. The New York Times described Louis as having been “out-thought” and “generally made to look foolish,” but the newspaper also scored the fight for the champion because he had “made all the fighting, did most of the leading and, his two knockdowns notwithstanding, landed a greater number of blows.”

Nat Fleischer, scoring for The Ring, also saw it for Louis.

Louis, unquestionably the puncher in the fight, landed more punches according to the Times. Whilst the newspaper men ringside tended to believe that Walcott had won, there were many who felt that the exact opposite was the case, including the men who mattered. Referee Ruby Goldstein scored it 7-6-2 for Walcott, judge Marty Monroe had it 9-6 to Louis and judge Frank Forbes had it 8-6-1 for the champion.

The highlights we have available to us seem inconclusive with neither fighter really emerging as clearly the superior of the other. In the rounds I have used to describe the Joe Louis defence, one, two and four can be scored for Walcott and three, nine, fourteen and fifteen for Louis.

But even if we had the entire fight, all we would have is a modern eye trying to interpret a fight set in 1947 with their respect for the title, their heightened appreciation of aggression and disdain for retreat.

Louis was the aggressor, the puncher, the champion, and according to at least one reputable source the busier man. More than that, there were few ringside scorecards that mimicked the degree of outrage expressed by the press.

Over the years I’ve come to suspect—just to suspect—that the decision was a reasonable one.

I feel with certainty that this was no robbery. Walcott may have deserved the nod; he may not have; but either way it was close. Why, then, the controversy? It is a fact that the crowd booed Louis from the ring. This has lent credence to what has become a truth by repetition. Perhaps, like Louis himself, they were disgusted with the champion’s performance (disgust, according to Joe, that caused him to attempt to leave the ring before the verdict was even read). More likely, they had seen Louis bamboozled by an opponent that had seemed one step ahead of him throughout. But fights are not and were not scored upon aesthetics. If Louis was out-landing Walcott and enough of those punches carried enough vim to impress two of the three judges, Joe’s job was done.

Finally, the fight continued to garner attention in the press because the method for scoring boxing itself was on trial. Whilst Walcott had been awarded points for his two knockdowns in rounds one and four on the supplementary system, they had in reality only gained him two rounds on the cards and whilst judge Forbes actually awarded Louis more rounds, he awarded Walcott more points. When there seemed even a hint of a chance that the decision could be overturned on a technicality (it was claimed that Forbes should have reversed his decision based upon general impressions, permitted in a case where a judge awards more points but fewer rounds to a given fighter) the controversy continued to burn.

And it would burn until Louis doused it with an eleventh-round knockout of Walcott some six months later. But I think he deserved his win of December 1947, too, or at least I don’t consider that he was firmly beaten as the legend says. It was a close fight—so close that perhaps even a handful of punches could have turned it.

For Louis, then, his defence would at least once prove to be as important as his offense. Had Walcott landed even one more punch in the right round, perhaps Louis would have been a two-time champion of the world instead of the most dominant world champion in history, as he remains.

In the sixth and final part of this technical analysis we’ll take a closer look at this champion at his very, very best.

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Thomas Hauser’s Literary Notes: Johnny Greaves Tells a Sad Tale

Published

18 hours ago

May 11, 2025

Thomas Hauser

Johnny Greaves was a professional loser. He had one hundred professional fights between 2007 and 2013, lost 96 of them, scored one knockout, and was stopped short of the distance twelve times. There was no subtlety in how his role was explained to him: “Look, Johnny; professional boxing works two ways. You’re either a ticket-seller and make money for the promoter, in which case you get to win fights. If you don’t sell tickets but can look after yourself a bit, you become an opponent and you fight to lose.”

By losing, he could make upwards of one thousand pounds for a night‘s work.

Greaves grew up with an alcoholic father who beat his children and wife. Johnny learned how to survive the beatings, which is what his career as a fighter would become. He was a scared, angry, often violent child who was expelled from school and found solace in alcohol and drugs.

The fighters Greaves lost to in the pros ran the gamut from inept local favorites to future champions Liam Walsh, Anthony Crolla, Lee Selby, Gavin Rees, and Jack Catterall. Alcohol and drugs remained constants in his life. He fought after drinking, smoking weed, and snorting cocaine on the night before – and sometimes on the day of – a fight. On multiple occasions, he came close to committing suicide. His goal in boxing ultimately became to have one hundred professional fights.

On rare occasions, two professional losers – “journeymen,” they’re called in The UK – are matched against each other. That was how Greaves got three of the four wins on his ledger. On September 29, 2013, he fought the one hundredth and final fight of his career against Dan Carr in London’s famed York Hall. Carr had a 2-42-2 ring record and would finish his career with three wins in ninety outings. Greaves-Carr was a fight that Johnny could win. He emerged triumphant on a four-round decision.

The Johnny Greaves Story, told by Greaves with the help of Adam Darke (Pitch Publishing) tells the whole sordid tale. Some of Greaves’s thoughts follow:

* “We all knew why we were there, and it wasn’t to win. The home fighters were the guys who had sold all the tickets and were deemed to have some talent. We were the scum. We knew our role. Give some young prospect a bit of a workout, keep out of the way of any big shots, lose on points but take home a wedge of cash, and fight again next week.”

* “If you fought too hard and won, then you wouldn’t get booked for any more shows. If you swung for the trees and got cut or knocked out, then you couldn’t fight for another 28 days. So what were you supposed to do? The answer was to LOOK like you were trying to win but be clever in the process. Slip and move, feint, throw little shots that were rangefinders, hold on, waste time. There was an art to this game, and I was quickly learning what a cynical business it was.”

* “The unknown for the journeyman was always how good your opponent might be. He could be a future world champion. Or he might be some hyped-up nightclub bouncer with a big following who was making lots of money for the promoter.”

* “No matter how well I fought, I wasn’t going to be getting any decisions. These fights weren’t scored fairly. The referees and judges understood who the paymasters were and they played the game. What was the point of having a go and being the best version of you if nobody was going to recognize or reward it?”

* “When I first stepped into the professional arena, I believed I was tough. believed that nobody could stop me. But fight by fight, those ideas were being challenged and broken down. Once you know that you can be hurt, dropped and knocked out, you’re never quite the same fighter.”

* “I had started off with a dream, an idea of what boxing was and what it would do for me. It was going to be a place where I could prove my toughness. A place that I could escape to and be someone else for a while. For a while, boxing was that place. But it wore me down to the point that I stopped caring. I’d grown sick and tired of it all. I wished that I could feel pride at what I’d achieved. But most of the time, I just felt like a loser.”

* “The fights were getting much more difficult, the damage to my body and my psyche taking longer and longer to repair after each defeat. I was putting myself in more and more danger with each passing fight. I was getting hurt more often and stopped more regularly. Even with the 28-day [suspensions], I didn’t have time to heal. I was staggering from one fight to the next and picking up more injuries along the way.”

* “I was losing my toughness and resilience. When that’s all you’ve ever had, it’s a hard thing to accept. Drink and drugs had always been present in my life. But now they became a regular part of my pre-fight preparation. It helped to shut out the fear and quieted the thoughts and worries that I shouldn’t be doing this anymore.”

* “My body was broken. My hands were constantly sore with blisters and cuts. I had early arthritis in my hip and my teeth were a mess. I looked an absolute state and inside I felt worse. But I couldn’t stop fighting yet. Not before the 100.”

* “I had abused myself time after time and stood in front of better men, taking a beating when I could have been sensible and covered up. At the start, I was rarely dropped or stopped. Now it was becoming a regular part of the game. Most of the guys I was facing were a lot better than me. This was mainly about survival.”

* “Was my brain f***ed from taking too many punches? I knew it was, to be honest. I could feel my speech changing and memory going. I was mentally unwell and shouldn’t have been fighting but the promoters didn’t care. Johnny Greaves was still a good booking. Maybe an even better one now that he might get knocked out.”

* “Nobody gave a f*** about me and whether I lived or died. I didn’t care about that much either. But the thought of being humiliated, knocked out in front of all those people; that was worse than the thought of dying. The idea of being exposed for what I was – a nobody.”

* “I was a miserable bastard in real life. A depressive downbeat mouthy little f***er. Everything I’ve done has been to mask the feeling that I’m worthless. That I have no value. The drinks and the drugs just helped me to forget that for a while. I still frighten myself a lot. My thoughts scare me. Do I really want to be here for the next thirty or forty years? I don’t know. If suicide wasn’t so impactful on people around you, I would have taken that leap. I don’t enjoy life and never have.”

So . . . Any questions?

****

Steve Albert was Showtime’s blow-by-blow commentator for two decades. But his reach extended far beyond boxing.

Albert’s sojourn through professional sports began in high school when he was a ball boy for the New York Knicks. Over the years, he was behind the microphone for more than a dozen teams in eleven leagues including four NBA franchises.

Putting the length of that trajectory in perspective . . . As a ballboy, Steve handed bottles of water and towels to a Knicks back-up forward named Phil Jackson. Later, they worked together as commentators for the New Jersey Nets. Then Steve provided the soundtrack for some of Jackson’s triumphs when he won eleven NBA championships as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers.

It’s also a matter of record that Steve’s oldest brother, Marv, was arguably the greatest play-by-play announcer in NBA history. And brother Al enjoyed a successful career behind the microphone after playing professional hockey.

Now Steve has written a memoir titled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Broadcast Booth. Those who know him know that Steve doesn’t like to say bad things about people. And he doesn’t here. Nor does he delve into the inner workings of sports media or the sports dream machine. The book is largely a collection of lighthearted personal recollections, although there are times when the gravity of boxing forces reflection.

“Fighters were unlike any other professional athletes I had ever encountered,” Albert writes. “Many were products of incomprehensible backgrounds, fiercely tough neighborhoods, ghettos and, in some cases, jungles. Some got into the sport because they were bullied as children. For others, boxing was a means of survival. In many cases, it was an escape from a way of life that most people couldn’t even fathom.”

At one point, Steve recounts a ringside ritual that he followed when he was behind the microphone for Showtime Boxing: “I would precisely line up my trio of beverages – coffee, water, soda – on the far edge of the table closest to the ring apron. Perhaps the best advice I ever received from Ferdie [broadcast partner Ferdie Pacheco] was early on in my blow-by-blow career – ‘Always cover your coffee at ringside with an index card unless you like your coffee with cream, sugar, and blood.’”

Writing about the prelude to the infamous Holyfield-Tyson “bite fight,” Albert recalls, “I remember thinking that Tyson was going to do something unusual that night. I had this sinking feeling in my gut that he was going to pull something exceedingly out of the ordinary. His grousing about Holyfield’s head butts in the first fight added to my concern. [But] nobody could have foreseen what actually happened. Had I opened that broadcast with, ‘Folks, tonight I predict that Mike Tyson will bite off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear,’ some fellas in white coats might have approached me and said, ‘Uh, Steve, could you come with us.'”

And then there’s my favorite line in the book: “I once asked a fighter if he was happily married,” Albert recounts. “He said, ‘Yes, but my wife’s not.'”

“All I ever wanted was to be a sportscaster,” Albert says in closing. “I didn’t always get it right, but I tried to do my job with honesty and integrity. For forty-five years, calling games was my life. I think it all worked out.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His next book – The Most Honest Sport: Two More Years Inside Boxing – will be published this month and is available for preorder at:

https://www.amazon.com/Most-Honest-Sport-Inside-Boxing/dp/1955836329

In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Argentina’s Fernando Martinez Wins His Rematch with Kazuto Ioka

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Argentina's-Fernando-Martinez-Wins-His-Rematch-with-Kazuto-Ioka

In an excellent fight climaxed by a furious 12^th round, Argentina’s Fernando Daniel Martinez came off the deck to win his rematch with Kazuto Ioka and retain his piece of the world 115-pound title. The match was staged at Ioka’s familiar stomping grounds, the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo.

In their first meeting on July 7 of last year in Tokyo, Martinez was returned the winner on scores of 117-111, 116-112, and a bizarre 120-108. The rematch was slated for late December, but Martinez took ill a few hours before the weigh-in and the bout was postponed.

The 33-year-old Martinez, who came in sporting a 17-0 (9) record, was a 7-2 favorite to win the sequel, but there were plenty of reasons to favor Ioka, 36, aside from his home field advantage. The first Japanese male fighter to win world titles in four weight classes, Ioka was 3-0 in rematches and his long-time trainer Ismael Salas was on a nice roll. Salas was 2-0 last weekend in Times Square, having handled upset-maker Rolly Romero and Reito Tsutsumi who was making his pro debut.

But the fourth time was not a charm for Ioka (31-4-1) who seemingly pulled the fight out of the fire in round 10 when he pitched the Argentine to the canvas with a pair of left hooks, but then wasn’t able to capitalize on the momentum swing.

Martinez set a fast pace and had Ioka fighting off his back foot for much of the fight. Beginning in round seven, Martinez looked fatigued, but the Argentine was conserving his energy for the championship rounds. In the end, he won the bout on all three cards: 114-113, 116-112, 117-110.

Up next for Fernando Martinez may be a date with fellow unbeaten Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, the lineal champion at 115. San Antonio’s Rodriguez is a huge favorite to keep his title when he defends against South Africa’s obscure Phumelela Cafu on July 19 in Frisco, Texas.

As for Ioka, had he won today’s rematch, that may have gotten him over the hump in so far as making it into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. True, winning titles in four weight classes is no great shakes when the bookends are only 10 pounds apart, but Ioka is still a worthy candidate.

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Emanuel Navarrete Survives a Bloody Battle with Charly Suarez in San Diego

Published

1 day ago

May 11, 2025

David A. Avila

Emanuel-Navarrete-Survives-a-Bloody-Battle-with-Charly-Suarez-in-San-Diego

In a torrid battle Mexico’s Emanuel “Vaquero” Navarrete and his staccato attack staved off the herky-jerky non-stop assaults of Philippine’s Charly Suarez to win by technical decision and retain the WBO super feather world title on Saturday.

What do they feed these guys?

Navarrete (40-2-1, 32 KOs) and his elongated arms managed to connect enough to compensate against the surprising Suarez (18-1, 10 KOs) who wowed the crowd at Pechanga Arena in San Diego.

An accidental clash of heads opened a cut on the side of Navarrete’s left eye and forced a stoppage midway through the fight.

From the opening round Navarrete used his windmill style of attack with punches from different angles that caught Suarez multiple times early. It did not matter. Suarez fired back with impunity and was just as hungry to punch it out with the Mexican fighter.

It was savage.

Every time Navarrete connected solidly, he seemed to pause and check out the damage. Bad idea. Suarez would immediately counter with bombs of his own and surprise the champion with his resilience and tenacity.

Wherever they found Suarez they should look for more, because the Filipino fighter from Manila was ferocious and never out of his depth.

Around the sixth round the Mexican fighter seemed a little drained and puzzled at the tireless attacks coming from Suarez. During an exchange of blows a cut opened up on Navarrete and it was ruled an accidental clash of heads by the referee. Blood streamed down the side of Navarrete’s face and it was cleared by the ringside physician.

But at the opening of the eighth round, the fight was stopped and the ringside physician ruled the cut was too bad to continue. The California State Athletic Commission looked at tape of the round when the cut opened to decipher if it was an accidental butt or a punch that caused the cut. It was unclear so the referee’s call of accidental clash of heads stood as the final ruling.

Score cards from the judges saw Navarrete the winner by scores of 78-75, 77-76 twice. He retains the WBO title.

Interim IBF Lightweight Title

The sharp-shooting Raymond “Danger” Muratalla (23-0, 17 KOs) maneuvered past Russia’s Zaur Abdullaev (20-2, 12 KOs) by unanimous decision to win the interim IBF lightweight title after 12 rounds.

Both fighters were strategic in their approach with Muratalla switching from orthodox to southpaw at various times of the fight. Neither fighter was ever able to dominant any round.

Defense proved the difference between the two lightweights. Muratalla was able to slip more blows than Abdullaev and that proved the difference. The fighter from Fontana, California was able to pierce Abdullaev’s guard more often than not, especially with counter punches.

Abdullaev was never out of the fight. The Russian fighter was able to change tactics and counter the counters midway through the fight. It proved effective especially to the body. But it was not enough to offset Muratalla’s accuracy.

There were no knockdowns and after 12 rounds the judges scored it 118-110, 119-109 twice for Muratalla who now becomes the mandatory for the IBF lightweight title should Vasyl Lomachenko return to defend it.

Muratalla was brief.

“He was a tough fighter,” said Muratalla. “My defense is something I work on a lot.”

Perla Wins

Super flyweight Perla Bazaldua (2-0) eased past Mona Ward (0-2) with a polished display of fighting at length and inside.

Combination punching and defense allowed Bazaldua to punch in-between Ward’s attacks and force the St. Louis fighter to clinch repeatedly. But Ward hung in there despite taking a lot of blows. After four rounds the Los Angeles-based Bazaldua was scored the winner 40-36 on all three cards. Bazaldua signed a long term contract with Top Rank in March.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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