Chebah Crushes Lara

By Boxing News - 05/08/2008 - Comments

chebah3353.jpgBy Bradley Tice: Unbeaten light welterweight prospect Ali Chebah (25-0, 19 KOs) was too much for Nicaraguan Nelson Lara (15-2-2, 8 KOs), finishing him in the 6th round of their WBC World Youth light welterweight title on Tuesday night at the Parc des Sports et Loisirs, Pont-Audemer, Eure, France. After a slow start in the 1st round, Chebah, 22, build up momentum and wore Lara down with big power shots, eventually stopping him in the 6th round with a short left hook to the head. Lara, 24, took a knee and then got up briefly, but then promptly took a knee again and was counted out by referee Massimo Barrovechhio.

In the first round, it looked as if the underdog Lara might pull off an upset as he landed effectively with jabs, combinations and hooks to the head of Chebah. Lara stayed in close to Chebah, smothering his power and preventing him from having room to get in his own shots. For the first two minutes of the round, it was all Lara as he tagged Chebah repeatedly with combinations to the body and head. Chebah, however, a notorious slow started, came on in the last minute of the round as he started to compose himself better, landing powerful right uppercuts and combinations.

Lara came back strong in the 2nd round, firing beautiful combinations and dominating much of the action with his high volume attack. However, like in the previous round, Chebah came on strong in the latter part of the round, hitting Lara with some big right hands to the head. Chebah couldn’t match Lara’s punch output, but with his superior power, it didn’t matter because he was doing significant damage with his big shots. Chebah varied the power in his shots, sometimes throwing weak shots for an extended period of time and then all of a sudden unloading with a particularly hard punch. This seemed to bother Lara, for he’d be knocked off balance at times when Chebah would suddenly load up on a big punch and tag him with it.

Chebah had a big round in the third round, hitting Lara over and over with power right hands in the round, and not giving him much chance to answer back with any return fire. Indeed, Lara’s punch output dropped off to next to nothing as he was reeling under the pressure that Chebah began applying on him in this round. Still mixing up the power on his shots, Chebah had Lara looking puzzled and distracted, not knowing what was coming next in terms of power shots or weak punches. Lara was no longer winning the exchanges in close, because now Chebah was unloading with uppercuts whenever Lara would attempt to crowd him. This had the effect of keeping Lara on the outside where he was less effective to get his shots off due to his shorter arms. Lara was cut over the left eye in the round but it wasn’t a bad cut.

Once again, Lara started out strong in the 4th round and took the attack on Chebah. Just when it looked as if Lara might be getting back into the fight, Chebah came on in the last minute of the round and hit Lara with a series of right hands to win the round. The shots were particularly big, and it made up for the fact that Chebah had been out-landed in the round by a significant margin by Lara. For Lara, it had to be disappointing because Chebah seemed to be able to dominate at will, erasing any good work that Lara did in the early portions of rounds and thereby steal the round without having to work as hard as Lara was.
Chebah began driving Lara backwards in the fifth round, measuring him with his left hand and launching pile driving right hands down the middle. Lara, for his part, could do little in this round due to the hard shots from Chebah, who kept it up the entire round instead of fighting hard for only one minute of the rounds, which was the case in most of the first four rounds of the fight. With Chebah fighting hard for the whole round, Lara really began to take a horrible beating and it seemed only a matter of time before Chebah outright stopped him.

Chebah came out looking for blood in the 6th round, stalking Lara as if he were a wounded animal. Hitting him with right hands, left hooks and uppercuts, Chebah had his way with anything he wanted to do in the round. Shortly into the round, Chebah began to land really hard shots and Lara for all practical purposes was getting taken to pieces by the withering fire from Chebah. While attacking him near his corner, Chebah landed a hard left hook that dropped Lara to his knee. He got up quickly and then retook a knee and was counted out by the referee Massimo Barrovechhio. The left hand from Chebah seemed to have taken everything out of Lara. It was as if Lara had taken one punch too many and just simply couldn’t continue to keep taking shots anymore. The left hand effectively took the will out of Lara, who was continuously battered for the last two rounds of the fight.