Clottey Stops Cruz

By Boxing News - 04/04/2008 - Comments

clottey54543353.jpgBy Erik Schmidt: In what turned out to be a disappoint premature stoppage by referee Ricky Gonzalez, # 1 ranked IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (34-2, 20 KOs) stopped an overmatched Jose Luis Cruz (34-4-2, 27 KOs) in the 5th round last night at the Aviator Sports Arena, in Brooklyn, New York. Shortly after Clottey landed a series of punishing shots, ending with two consecutive left hands to the head of Cruz in the 5th, the referee jumped in and stopped the bout at 2:48 of the round. However, before Cruz looked perfectly okay and had been fighting back well the entire round up until the quick stopped. The referee said later that Cruz was wincing after every shot from Clottey, which was his reasoning for stopping the fight with Cruz still on his feet.

Clottey, 31, looked far from his best in the fight as he very economical with his punches and mostly fighting hard for the last 30 seconds of each round. He’s had a history of fading in the 2nd half of his bouts dating back to his 12th round unanimous decision loss to Antonio Margarito in a title shot for his WBO welterweight crown in December 2006.

Since then, Clottey has seemed to fight less harder in the earlier rounds, perhaps in order not to fade as badly as he did against Margarito. Whatever the case, he didn’t look good against Cruz. Then again, he really didn’t need to because it was a mismatch to begin with and perhaps never was meant to be a competitive fight.

Clottey dominated the 1st and 2nd round, mostly due to his superior work in the last 30 seconds of the rounds. Cruz, 31, was throwing body shots but his hand speed was very slow in comparison to Clottey, which kept him from landing more effectively with his many shots. In the 2nd round, Cruz was cut on the forehead after clashing heads with Clottey. The round was dull until the last 10 seconds when Clottey, who looked bored, opened up with a short burst of shots to the head of Cruz.

In rounds three and four, Clottey hurt Cruz with combinations, causing him to take a step back, but Clottey showed little interest in following up with any additional shots. Clottey didn’t look to want to risk espending more energy than he needed to, thus he let both opportunities slip by. Cruz landed a high number of body shots in both the 3rd and 4th rounds, and made both rounds close. However, Clottey’s punches were more effective.

In the 5th round, Cruz came out very strong and was landing well to the body for most of the round. Clottey, however, opened up with a short three punch combination, at which point the referee jumped in and stopped the fight. It was, as far as I can tell, a bad stoppage in that Cruz wasn’t hurt in the least and was still firing back.