By Chris Williams: In a defeat that many boxing fans saw coming a long time ago, perhaps as soon as the fight was signed, WBC cruiserweight champion Firat Arslan (29-4-1, 18 KOs) was stopped in the 10th round by Guillermo Jones (36-3-2, 28 KOs) on Saturday night at the Color Line Arena, Altona, in Hamburg, Germany. With Arslan, 38, taking non-stop punches to the head in the 10th round by Jones, the referee Luis Pabon stepped in and stopped the slaughter at 2:33 of the 10th. Arslan was cut badly on his top lip in the 3rd round, and the cut bled constantly throughout the fight, dripping down all over his face and badly and covering the ring with blood.

Arslan also bled constantly from the nose, which may have been broken early on by one of Jones’ many uppercuts in the fight. Arslan never stood a chance in the fight, as the 6’4″ Jones was all over him from round one, hitting him with dozens of punches in every round and burying him with a blanket of punches. Not a particularly hard puncher, Jones focused on throwing a high volume of shots at Arslan, badly outworking him in the fight and never seeming to tire with all the many punches he was throwing at Arslan.

If you could pick the most perfect opponent for Jones, it would be Arslan. Jones, who despite his huge 6’4″ frame, likes to fight on the inside where he throws tons of uppercuts and short hooks to the head and body. Arslan’s fate was sealed when he opted to fight Jones at close range instead of at a distance, where Jones is much more vulnerable. However, the over-muscled Arslan isn’t really suited for fighting at distance because of all the excess muscle on his body and coupled with the shortness of his arms. Because of this, he was forced to stand in with the much busier Jones and try to trade shots with him.

Immediately it was clear in the first round that Arslan was in trouble, as Jones came out fast throwing a lot of punches at Arslan, and finding him very easy to hit. Up until this fight, Arslan had been fortunate enough to fight opponents with much lower work rates than Jones, and yet he still wasn’t all that impressive.

In fights against Virgil hill and Darnell Wilson, Arslan appeared to get gift decisions over fighters that I felt did more than him. Neither Wilson or Hill, though, had anywhere close the same work rate as the busy Jones, so in light of that, I figured that unless Arslan, a light puncher at best, could somehow find it in him to knock Jones out, he was very likely going to lose the fight.

Starting in the 3rd round, Arslan’s bottom lip and nose began bleeding like a leaky faucet. His lip, in fact, appeared badly torn and the blood came out continuously. I can only guess how much blood he much have ultimately swallowed during the fight. The referee stopped the action in the third and marched Arslan over to the ringside doctor to have him examine Arslan’s bleeding lip. As expected, he let the fight continue.

It would have probably taken something near fatal for the fight to have been stopped at this point, with Arslan being a champion. Jones stepped up his assault, which already was a near bombardment up until that point, and began hitting Arslan like he was a punching bag. The blood from Arslan’s lip and nose splattered all over his face and torso, making him look as if he had been painted red. It wasn’t just the blood, though, that looked really bad, it was Arslan himself; He was taking terrible beating from Jones, and it painful just to watch the rain of shots that Arslan was getting hit with.

Arslan responded well in the 4th and 5th rounds, fighting back with a dogged determination as if he were fighting for his survival rather than just a mere fight. He still, however, continued taking an awful amount of punishment and the few shots that he threw in both the 4th and 5th wasn’t anywhere equal to the amount of punches he was getting hit by from Jones.

The 6th round was somewhat close, as Arslan landed some good short punches on the inside, but it came at a price, because Jones was hitting him with a lot of uppercuts at close range. In the 8th round, Arslan fought really hard in the first minute for the round, snapping off some good jabs to the face of Jones. The jab is probably the best weapon that Arslan has in his toolbox, but believe me, it was no match for the hooks and uppercuts that Jones was firing back at him. In the last minute of the round, Jones unloaded on him with a lot of hooks and uppercuts to the head. Arslan just took the shots. In between rounds, he was beginning to look sick, probably from the blood that he must have been forced to swallow from his lip. His face looked weary and swollen as well.

After the 8th round, the ringside doctor once again examined Arslan’s bloody lip, but allowed the fight to continue. Jones, who had began to look a little haggard in rounds six through eight, stepped up the pace in the 9th round and appeared to have gotten his second wind. Arslan fought well for a part of the round, but then Jones seemed to step on the gas and started hitting him with a massive amount of shots. This continued in the 10th round, as Jones just pounded away at Arslan with one shot after another to the head, with Arslan blocking none of them. Finally, the referee Luis Pabon had seen enough and moved in and halted the fight at 2:33 of the 10th round.