By Nate Anderson: EBU (European) lightweight champion Yuri Romanov (21-2, 14 KOs) sliced up a game but limited Jon Thaxton (33-8, 18 KOs), defeating him by a 6th round TKO when Thaxton’s corner stopped the fight due to a severe cut over his right eye on Friday night at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London. Thaxton, 33, didn’t have his BBCofC British lightweight title on the line, and it lucky for him, because he was never in this fight. Thaxton made it mildly interesting in the first three rounds of the fight, exchanging fiercely with Romanov. However, Thaxton suffered a bad cut over his right eye, a result of a hard right hand from Romanov, and from then on it was only a matter of time before the referee stopped the fight.
Finally, at the end of the 5th round, with Thaxton bleeding all over the place from his deep cut, his corner stepped in and asked that the fight be stopped. Referee Massimo Barrovecchio then waited until Thaxton came out for the sixth round, before officially stopping the one-sided bout. The fight, however, really wasn’t all that competitive in that Romanov was simply a much harder puncher than Thaxton and did a lot of damage each time he’d land a shot. He wasn’t any more busy than Thaxton. On the contrary, Thaxton was both the busier and the fighter who landed most of the punches, but Romanov, ranked #3 in the WBA, has world class power, whereas Thaxton is merely just a good local fighter.
The southpaw Thaxton took the fight to Romanov in the first two round, forgoing defense altogether as he unloaded with lead left hands to the head of Romanov. Thaxton, not a particularly powerful puncher, seemed to be attempting to overwhelm Romanov with punches, perhaps hoping to grind out a 12-round unanimous decision just as Graham Earl had done in January 2006. However, Thaxton’s strategy appeared doomed for failure because he was getting hit flush with a almost everything that Romanov was throwing. In the case of a fighter with power like Romanov, bad things happen if he gets a chance to land frequently enough.
Before long, Thaxton had a huge cut on his right eyebrow, which bled into his eye making it hard to see Romanov’s punches clearly. Thaxton continued landing well in rounds three and four, out-landing Romanov at almost a two to one clip. The problem, however, was that it didn’t take Romanov nearly as many shots to do damage to Thaxton. Indeed, Thaxton could have him even more and wouldn’t have mattered for he just had too much power for Thaxton to afford to trade punches with.
By the 5th round, Thaxton was bleeding like a stuck pig, blood going everywhere each time Romanov would land a punch, which really wasn’t all that often. Romanov did very little in the 5th round, looking as if he was taking it easy, trying to conserve his strength. Thaxton fought remarkably well, given the circumstances, for the entire 5th round despite his huge cut leaking all over the place. After the round ended, Thaxton’s corner thought better of allowing their fighter to continue on and risk the cut getting worse, perhaps stretching further across his face. It was better to stop the fight at this point rather than waiting for the referee to halt it later in the fight with the same outcome. There wasn’t much of a chance of Thaxton winning by knockout because of his limited power.
It was a good win for Romanov, who at #3 in the WBA lightweight division, keeps himself in line for future shot at title holder Nate Campbell.