By Scott Gilfoid: With four days having elapsed since former IBF light heavyweight champion Clinton Woods was defeated by Tavoris Cloud last Friday night, there is still no word about a retirement announcement from the 37-year-old Woods. Before the fight, Woods had hinted about retiring if he lost the fight. Well, Woods lost the fight by a 12-round unanimous decision against the 27-year-old Cloud, but Woods still hasn’t come forward to say whether he’ll be in fact retiring or not.

The judges awarded Cloud the decisions by the scores 116-112, 116-112 and 116-112. I have no idea how or why the judges scored the fight all the same or even why they gave Woods so many rounds. I thought the fight was a complete slaughter and if I wanted to be kind, I would have given Woods two rounds at the most. Anything more than two rounds was doing a great disserve to Cloud, who not only outworked Woods in virtually every round, but he landed the much harder blows all night long.

I think Woods would be stupid to retire now at this time, because the light heavyweight division is filled with stiffs, including two of the four champions, and I could see Woods beating at least one of them, possibly two. Heck, Woods could have beaten the limited Cloud had he used his height and reach and boxed him from the outside in a smart manner.

Instead for some peculiar reason only known to Woods himself, he stood straight up and foot Cloud at close range. It was like standing in the middle of the freeway and hoping not to get hit. I don’t know that I could even on my worst day, dreamed a dumber strategy than that against a short slugger like Cloud. Woods gave up his height and reach and fought Cloud’s fight for him. Fighting like that, the loss was a foregone conclusion for the 37-year-old Woods.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see what Woods does next. Although I don’t think he should retire just yet, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if he does. Woods looked bad in losing to Antonio Tarver by a 12 round decision in April 2008, and lost his International Boxing Federation light heavyweight title in that fight. The loss wasn’t what was such a big deal; it was the fact that Woods appeared not to really try all that hard for some reason. He looked like wasn’t into the fight.