Three time WBC super middleweight champion Markus Beyer (35-3-1, 13 KOs) defeated Russian middleweight Murat Mahmudov (16-4, 8 KOs) by a 8-round unanimous decision last night at the Zenith – Die Kulturhalle, in Munich, Bayern, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 80-72, for Beyer. The bout was never remotely close and wasn’t supposed to be, for Beyer, 36, was making his first appearance in over a year since being destroyed in three rounds by Mikkel Kessler in October 2006.
Mostly, however, the southpaw Beyer was intent on avoiding getting upset by his slow, overmatched opponent because Beyer doesn’t want to mess up a potential bout with Roy Jones Jr., who was sitting at ringside to observe Beyer’s bout. Jones, 39, wants to fight Beyer next, a bout which will take place in Germany, where the fans wouldn’t seem to mind that Jones is well past his prime. Perhaps to them, it doesn’t matter, because Beyer is past his prime as well and isn’t considered championship material any longer at this late stage in his career. Jones, who earlier in his career was reluctant to come to Germany to fight German star light heavyweight Darius Michalzewski, he has now changed his tune now that he’s in the twilight of his once great career.
Jones, however, has little to fear from the southpaw Beyer, in that he looks pretty average at this point in his career, at least that’s the way he looked against Mahmudov on Friday night. Beyer mostly jabbed, rarely throwing combinations or left hands. Mahmudov, unfortunately, was too slow to take advantage of Beyer’s lack of offense until the later rounds when Mahmudov finally began to land effectively. However, Mahmudov never one a round in the fight because he was always at the end of Beyer’s jab. He did, however, badly mark up Beyer’s face in the few times that he hit him in the bout.
Mahmudov, originally from Dagestan, Russia, was in way over his head from the very start, for he’d mostly fought fighters with losing records during his career, and Beyer, even a faded version, was simply too much for him to contend with adequately. The first several rounds were controlled by Beyer, who used his jab and occasional combinations to control the action. Mahmudov would attempt to start his own offense on occasion, but Beyer shut him down each time with counter punching. The main problem for Mahmudov, though, was his lack of handspeed, which would cause him to take shots as he attempted to throw his excruciatingly slow punches. In all honestly, he didn’t belong in the same ring as Beyer because he wasn’t even a C-level fighter. That’s not to say that Beyer was all that good, because he looked no better than a top 25 fighter, but against the likes of Mahmudov, Beyer looked like a champion 10 times over. Bad matchup, though the German crowd loved it.
Beyer easily won rounds four and five, yet by the end of the fifth round, he was badly marked up around his left eye and forehead. All I could think of is that he must have delicate skin, because Mahmudov had barely laid a glove on him at this point in the fight. That would change in rounds six though eight, as Mahmudov began to land with greater frequency as Beyer faded noticeably, breathing hard and reacting slow to punches from Mahmudov. Not a good sign for Beyer, if he indeed has his sights on Jones as his next opponent.
If a slow moving, slow punching plodder like Mahmudov can score effectively in the later rounds, Jones will put on a clinic and punch Beyer silly. However, Beyer was good enough to win the final three rounds, largely by the use of his jab. By this time in the fight, he was no longer throwing combinations or straight left hands as he needed to conserve his energy due to his poor stamina.