Tony Dodson Defeats Mounir Sahli

By Boxing News - 07/02/2008 - Comments

dodson4552.jpgBy Nate Anderson: Light heavyweight Tony Dodson (23-4-1, 12 KOs) defeated Mounir Sahli (8-12, 5 KOs) by a 6-round decision last night at the Nuovo Casinò, Campione d’Italia, in Lombardia, Italy. Dodson won every round of the fight, but looked far from impressive, walking into a lot of right hands from the defensive expert Sahli. Dodson, 28, looked far removed from his championship form of 2003, a time when he briefly held the BBBofC British super middleweight title. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t hold the title for long (all of one fight), as he was badly injured in a car accident and was out of boxing for two years recovering from his injuries.

Dodson looked stiff and uncomfortable in the 1st round against Sahli, following him around and looking to land some big right hands. Some of them landed, but more than a few missed their mark badly. Sahli, somewhat of a defensive wizard despite his poor record, expertly countered Dodson when he’d come trying to tag him with a big shot. Dodson did some good work with his jab, tripling it up at times and setting up his right hand quite well.

Sahli, 31, seemed to have an answer for everything that Dodson would do, either moving from him, clinching any chance he could get (which as the rounds progressed, was quite often), hitting Dodson on the way in, and countering him with right hands. Dodson, however, seemed to make Sahli’s job a little easier than it should been otherwise, because he would often come right at him in a straight line trying to roll right over him. Sahli was too for those kind of primitive tactics and he made Dodson pay for many of his mistakes by hitting him with good shots.

In the 2nd and 3rd round, Dodson stalked Sahli continuously around the ring landing mostly one shot at a time. He still appeared to be loading up way too much perhaps thinking he could take Sahli out with something big. One can’t really blame Dodson for that, because Sahli had been stopped by much lesser fighters than Dodson in his career, but those losses had come against much bigger punchers than Dodson, a fighter with only fair to average power. Still, Dodson persisted in going for a knockout and seemed to forget all about his boxing skills as he plodded after Sahli around the ring. For all his efforts, Dodson only succeeded on in landing one good punch in the 3rd round, tagging Sahli with a big left hook. The punch had no effect on him, though, and he immediately responded with a combination to the head of Dodson.

Sahli looked quite impressive in the 4th round, hitting Dodson repeatedly with big right hands and uppercuts in the round as he would come forward. It was easy for Sahli, because Dodson rarely even attempted to block of the shots, coming in face forward and counting on his chin to hold up so he could get in his own shots. One would hope that Dodson will alter this style in the future when he steps it up against better competition. As it was, Sahli looked like the better fighter in the round, and seemed to show some promise as a fighter. It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t a little better trained on his offensive side of his game, because he showed the boxing ability to be a good quality fighter, perhaps better than Dodson even.

Dodson nailed Sahli with a big right hand low at the start of the 5th round, the punch hurting Sahli and causing a brief time out. During the remainder of the round, Dodson seemed to be content with jabbing and mauling Sahli in clinches, hitting and holding at the same time. Not particularly sporting, but I suppose it was better than getting hit with right hands from Sahli in the center of the ring. In the last 10 seconds of the round, Sahli teed-off on Dodson with three consecutive right hands to the head, which made the round very close.

Dodson continued mostly jabbing in the 6th round, and at one point hitting Sahli with a left forearm to the head while throwing a punch. Sahli, however, seemed to do the better damage, hitting Dodson with a number of clean right hands. Dodson looked to have done enough, due to his jabs, to have won the round. It wasn’t pretty and he looked frustrated with the movement and defensive tactics of Sahli.