By Nate Anderson: Featherweight contender Billy Dib (22-1, 11 KOs) defeated Davey Browne (15-1-1, 4 KOs) by 8th round technical decision on Wednesday night for the IBF Pan Pacific Youth featherweight and interim WBC World Youth featherweight title at The Cube, Campbelltown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Dibs, 23, using his unorthodox style of boxing reminiscent of a slightly poor version of Naseem Hamed, used his boxing skills and a lot of movement to control most of the fight.
In the 7th round, Dibs charged forward and clashed heads with Browne, cutting him badly over his left eye. Later in the round with Browne struggling to see due to the blood dripping into his eye, he was cut over his right eye from a punch from Dibs. The doctor examined both cuts and allowed the fight to continue one more round. In the 8th round, the ringside doctor decided the cuts were bad enough to cause the stoppage of the fight.
Dibs, ranked #14th in the IBF featherweight division, was making his first appearance since losing badly to WBO featherweight champion Steven Luevano in October 2008. Dibs took a lot of heat due to his wild, showboating style of fighting by many boxing experts who saw him as lacking the skill needed to fight in a conventional way which was required to beat the more skilled fighters like Luevano.
Against Browne, Dibs seemed to be fighting a lot less unpredictable then he had in the past, looking quite good at times in using his jab and blocking punches. However, as the fight progressed, he began using his old style of fighting more and more, switching to southpaw, changing directions on a whim and charging forward in wild attacks that often led to head butts. Along the way, there was fair share of wrestling, rabbit punches and other roughhouse tactics seen from Dibs, none which were needed to defeat the likes of Browne.
Dib decided to brawl with Browne early on in the 1st, standing toe to toe with him and trading shots. He got Browne in the corner late in the round and hurt him with a flurry of shots. However, in electing to brawl with Browne, Dib allowed himself to get hit much more often than he would have been had he boxed more.
The 2nd round was close as Browne landed some nice power shots with his right hand. Browne caught Dibs on more than a few occasions as Dib would come charging forward trying to exchange shots. However, Dib landed a couple of nice right hands of his own and succeeded in causing Browne’s right eye to develop redness underneath by the end of the round.
In rounds three and four, Dib fought well, throwing right hands, circling the ring continuously and not giving Browne many changes to land his shots. Dib began changing back and forth from orthodox to southpaw in the 4th, trying to confuse Browne. It wasn’t really needed because Browne was totally confused as it was and not doing well against Dib’s awkward style of fighting. Dib did some good work while rushing in and catching Browne with fast right hands.
In rounds five through seven, there was a lot of wrestling, holding and hitting and occasional rabbit punches from Dib. It seemed as if Dib’s fighting style degraded during this time to a more primitive level and though it was successful against Browne that only seemed to be because he wasn’t nearly a world class fighter.
Using his wild style of fighting, Dib would have been destroyed by a talented featherweight like Yoriorkis Gamboa and others of his class. In the 6th, Dib began showboating a great deal, at one point doing the Ali shuffle after landing a nice right hand.
It was all well and good, but seemed out of place given his lower quality opponent he was in with. I could see him celebrating if he had been able to dominate Luevano in his last fight, but it ended up the opposite way around.
In the 7th, Dib grabbed Browne while he was bent over and landed a picture perfect rabbit punch. It was a classic rabbit shot which should have been penalized or at least a warning given. Unfortunately, neither of which happened. Later in the round, Dib came charging at Browne and clashed heads with him, causing a bad cut over his left eye.
I saw this as a potential problem earlier in the fight because of the way that Dib would come flying forward on many of his attempts to initiate action. A second cut was opened up in the round, this time over Browne’s right eye after getting hit with a flurry of shots from Dib.
In the 8th, Dib was effectively teeing off with shots as Browne had problems seeing out of both eyes due to the cuts. The referee then stepped in and had Browne’s cuts examined by the ringside doctor, who immediately determined that the fight should be stopped.
In other action on the card, light welterweight Solomon Egberime (18-2, 9 KOs) defeated Moses Seran (20-12, 10 KOs) by a six-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 59-55, 60-54 and 60-54. Egberime, 30, originally from Nigeria and now living in Australia, showed some nice boxing skills, throwing impressive combinations and using good footwork throughout the bout to avoid the bigger shots from the hard hitting Seran.
Though Seran clearly had his moments at times in the fight, he found it hard most of the time to land his shots due to the elusiveness of Egberime. The bout was entirely controlled by Egberime with the only excitement occurring late in the fight when Seran caught up with him in the 5th and 6th rounds and was able to land a couple of nice right hands. Other than that, Egberime had it pretty easy. He was warned for the use of his head in the 5th round due to his tendency to charge forward with his head down at times.
After the fight, Egberime said “I’m ready to take on anybody, anytime, because I’m the best kept secret. Lenny, [Leonardo Zappavigna] I’ll eat your candy.”
In arguably the worst fight of the night, heavyweights Colin Wilson (34-24-1, 20 KOs) and Solomon Haumono (15-0-1, 14 KOs) fought to a 10-round draw. The final judges’ scores were 95-95, 96-95 for Wilson, and 96-94 for Haumono. Both heavyweights were huge weighing 256 for the 6’5″ Wilson and 238 for Haumono, but neither had much power, hand speed or the ability to throw many punches without tiring out.
Wilson, 36, dominated the first four rounds using his jab, reach and combinations. However, after the 4th round his work rate dropped off dramatically, allowing Haumono to get into the fight and take over with his short steady punches.
There were few combinations thrown by either fighter in the 2nd half of the fight as both looked exhausted, gasping for breath frequently and showing little in the way of power. Haumono landed a nice right hand in the 5th that gave Wilson a bloody nose, but he did precious little than that in the round. In rounds six and seven, Haumono outworked Wilson by a significant margin in both rounds.
However, the rounds still ended up difficult to score because many of Haumono’s punches were weak arm punches thrown mainly just to connect. Wilson seemed to be putting more into his shots but he was still so tired that he was unable to throw more than 20 punches per round without laboring.
Wilson came back strong landing some decent right hands. In the 9th and 10th rounds, Haumono seemed to edge the rounds with his better work rate.