By Chet Mills: heavyweights Sinan Samil Sam (30-4-1, 16 KOs) and Paolo Vidoz (25-4-1, 14 KOs) fought to a controversial 12-round draw on Friday night at the Bueyuek Anadolu Hotel, in Ankara, Turkey. However, it looked to me as if Vidoz, 37, easily won the fight by 11 rounds to 1 of Sam. I could only give Sam the first round, in which he landed a lot of power shots and gave Vidoz some brief problems. After that round, however, Vidoz used an excellent jab, and movement, circling constantly to Sam’s right, the keep the power-punching Sam from landing any of his big shots.
Vidoz kept a constant jab in the face of Sam, hitting him over and over with it and only getting hit a handful of times each round. Vidoz’ jab is quite good, much better than I remembered it being. He gave Sam a steady diet of his jab, and by the 9th round, both of Sam’s eyes were swollen up from the constant punches he was forced to eat as he would plod forward.
From rounds two until the 4th round, Vidoz was really working Sam over, hitting him with constant stinging jabs, and nice combinations. Sam opened up with a brief barrage of punches in the last 10 seconds of the 4th round, trying hard to steal the round.
However, as good as he looked in those last 10 seconds, it wasn’t enough to overcome all that Vidoz had done in the rest of the. It also seemed to suggest that Sam, though only 34, wasn’t particularly interesting in fighting hard for the full three minutes over every round.
Looking at his physique, which seemed to indicate that he hadn’t trained quite hard enough for the fight judging by the large mounds of fat handing around his midsection, he didn’t appear ready for a hard fought bout. Indeed, Sam looked as if he was trained for a quick knockout victory, and when that didn’t happen, he found himself in deep trouble.
Vidoz didn’t look all that good, either, with almost as much fat handing off his body as Sam. Except that at least Vidoz was fighting hard, throwing constant jabs and lighting Sam up every once in awhile.
None of the rounds were even close from the 5th until the 12th, as Vidoz badly outworked Sam, out-landing him by a three to one margin. I suppose some boxing fans will point to Sam’s better power, using that as the reason the fight should have been scored a draw. However, in this case, Vidoz was throwing about as hard as Sam, and doing it much more frequently.
It was a bad decision, but I didn’t expect much, given that the fight was fought in Turkey (Sam is originally from Turkey), and there wasn’t much way that Vidoz was going to win a decision over there. In receiving a draw, Vidoz really well for himself, because if the fight was even slightly close, which it wasn’t, then Sam would have likely been given the decision.
Sam didn’t look too pleased with the draw, looking angry and refusing to let one of his team members pick him up and walk around the ring. I don’t know why Sam was so upset, I mean certainly he had to have had an idea that he wasn’t doing well considering all the punches he was getting hit with by Vidoz. It was scary how many jabs he was hit, which left his face looking as if he had rammed it into a wall. If it was me, I’d have known that I lost and would have been upset with how I performed, not with the ultimate decision, which seemed to be rewarding him for something he didn’t actually do.
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