Savon dominates Joshua but still loses

By Boxing News - 08/02/2012 - Comments

Image: Savon dominates Joshua but still losesBy Scott Gilfoid: In one of the worst scored Olympic fights I’ve ever seen, super heavyweight Anthony Joshua defeated 22-year-old Cuban Erislandy Savon by a 17-16 score on Wednesday in London, England. It was terrible scoring of the fight, as Savon, the cousin of former Olympic gold medalist Felix Savon for Cuba, completely dominated the painfully slow and flat-footed Joshua in all three rounds of the fight.

The scoring was bad in every round of the fight, but the third round is where the scoring was a joke basically. Savon teed off on slow and plodding Joshua during the entire round, snapping his head back again and again and with combinations and jabs. Yet when the round ended, the Savon was only credited with a 4-3 score when he had been smashing Joshua up the entire round with shots.

Here’s the scoring round by round:

1st: Joshua 6, Savon 5
2nd: Joshua 8, Savon 7
3rd: Savon 4, Joshua 3

That was ridiculous scoring because I had Savon winning by these scores:

1st: Savon 11, Joshua 5
2nd: Savon 10, Joshua 6
3rd: Savon 18, Joshua 4

The third round was a virtual route, as Savon was teeing off at will with shot after shot, tagging Joshua, hurting him and exposing him as a slow hulk who can’t let his hands go. Joshua looked like a frozen version of Wladimir after he’d been put in a freezer for a couple of hours and then dragged out in the ring. Joshua couldn’t let his hands go because he couldn’t handle the movement that the talented Cuban was showing.

Joshua must feel pretty bad to win this like this because I don’t know of anyone that actually thinks he deserved to win the fight. You know it’s bad when his fellow Brits even think he lost.

Despite getting what a lot of boxing fans saw as a gift decision, Joshua will now be moving onto the quarter finals to face Zhilei Zhang this Monday on August 6th.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Joshua win a controversial decision. At the 2011 World Amateur Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, Joshua defeated 2008 super heavyweight Olympic Gold Medalist Roberto Cammarelle by a decision in a fight where I had Cammarelle easily winning the fight. Cammarelle dominated almost every exchange against the slow-footed plodding Joshua, but yet again Joshua was given a controversial decision.

I’d like to see Savon come to the United States and turn pro. This guy has got the goods and looks to be a future world champion if he can somehow get out of Cuba. He’s a real talent. Savon totally schooled Joshua, and make him look like a bumbling clod all fight long. The way Savon moves around the ring, throws combinations and fire back shots after he would get hit. The guys is a major, major talent. And the best part of all, Savon is only 22. He’s going to be something special.

I got to say I’m not at all impressed with Joshua for the hype that’s been made about the guy. He doesn’t have the spark that former Olympic medalists Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe and Wladimir Klitschko all had. He’s just big, slow and he has a decent – not great – right hand.

Savon was the much more talented fighter today and he deserved to win this fight, and I would given him a great chance at moving on to win the gold medal. Unfortunately, the odd scoring this fight isn’t the only fight in this Olympics where the judging has been questionable. There’s been several other bouts that make you shake your head and wonder what the judges were thinking when they came up with the scores.



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