By Nate Anderson: Undefeated Romanian light heavyweight contender Adrian Diaconu (25-0, 15 KOs) defeated American Chris Henry (21-1, 17 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision tonight to win the WBC light heavyweight interim title at the Sala Polivalenta, in Bucharest, Romania. Diaconu, 29, ranked #1 in the WBC, appeared to land the cleaner punches all fight long and rarely had trouble with Henry. The final judges scores were 115-113, 115-113 and 116-113.

However, Diaconu appeared to win all but two of the rounds to Henry, who for his part, showed a tendency to land a large amount of rabbit punches in the fight, though he was never penalized for them by the referee. Henry, 27, looked robotic and mechanical for most of the bound, seeming to load up to much with his punches and hence lacked the speed and combinations needed to win the fight.

In rounds one and two, Diaconu used his crushing jab and powerful two-fisted combinations to catch Henry repeatedly as he would come forward. Though Henry had his guard up much of the time, it seemed more for show than for any practical purposes of blocking punches, because he was wide open for every shot that Diaconu chose to throw at him.

Diaconu landed a huge left hand in the third round, which put a cap on a round in which Diaconu gave Henry a boxing lesson. However, Henry landed a couple of good right hands, one of which blacked the right eye of Diaconu. It wasn’t a factor in the fight but it did turn a darker shade of purple as the bout progressed into the later rounds of the fight.

In the 5th round, Henry threw a couple of hard rabbit punches to the back of Diaconu’s head, causing the referee to give Henry a warning. Diaconu seemed particularly upset with the repeated fouls although he kept his composure and didn’t respond in kind with any of his own.

Diaconu continued to control the action in rounds six and seven, while Henry continued throwing periodic rabbit punches thrown with a lot of power.

Early in the 8th round, Henry continued with the occasional rabbit punches, while Diaconu landed clean right hands to the head to repay him each time. Late in the round, Diaconu landed a powerful four-punch combination that stunned Henry, causing him to back up visibly hurt. Diaconu followed after him and landed a flurry of shots as the round ended.

In the 9th round, there was more rabbit punches from Henry, who was holding Diaconu’s head down trying to line him up for the perfect shot to head. However, Diaconu still landed the more effective punches in the round, enough to win yet another round. By this time, I had Henry hopelessly behind and in need of a knockout to win the fight.

In the 11th and 12th rounds, the fight got sloppy as Diaconu, now tired, began to slip to the canvas often when being leaned on by Henry. I wasn’t sure if it was just fatigue or a ploy from Diaconu to try and buy time, because he was well aware that he was ahead in the fight and only needed to last out the remaining rounds without being knocked out. Diaconu easily won the 11th with his cleaner shots. In the 12th round, he decided to take the round off and let Henry do most of the punching. By then, it didn’t matter much because Henry had little chance of winning aside from scoring a sudden knockout.