Ogogo was experiencing double-vision against Cunningham

By Boxing News - 10/23/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says previously unbeaten middleweight prospect Anthony Ogogo (11-1, 7 KOs) was experiencing double vision in his 8th round TKO loss to unheralded Craig Cunningham (17-1, 4 KOs) last Saturday night in their scheduled 10 round fight at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, UK.

The 28-year-old southpaw Cunningham came into the fight with 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Ogogo as the underdog. However, Cunningham dropped Ogogo with a right hook to the head in the 2nd round, and continued to pot shot him though the next six rounds.

Ogogo appeared to come back from the knockdown somewhat, and did reasonably well until the 8th. Cunningham started to tee off on the tired looking Ogogo. The referee Ian John Lewis stopped the action to let Ogogo have some loose tape removed from his gloves. While Ogogo was in the corner, his trainer stopped the fight.

The news of Ogogo having blurred vision was later revealed to the boxing fans. Some fans thought Ogogo simply quit in order avoiding getting knocked out, as things looked pretty bleak for him in the 8th. Cunningham was starting to get to Ogogo again like he had in the 2nd round. In hindsight, referee Ian John Lewis might have saved Ogogo from being knocked out in a clinical manner by calling a time out when he did.

“I think he [Ogogo] was getting double vision, which obviously is a worry,” said Hearn to IFL TV about Ogogo’s loss to Cunningham. “It was a knockdown. He was repeatedly hitting him. Ogogo showed big heart as well to come back in the fight. He was out in that round [2nd], and he came back. He started winning rounds after that, but he never seemed to recover after getting hurt early. Maybe it was a lack of experience [on Ogogo’s part]. Maybe by getting involved when he shouldn’t have. Maybe he should have boxed him a little bit more. But take nothing away from Cunningham, because it was a massive win for him. He was a big underdog in that fight. He’s probably changed his life tonight, Craig Cunningham,” said Hearn.

Well, hopefully Ogogo’s double vision isn’t a sign that there’s a serious problem, because it would be a pity if his boxing career ends early before he’s even achieved anything.

I don’t think you can blame Ogogo’s loss on him having double vision, and I don’t buy the bit about him never recovering from the 2nd round knockdown. I think it’s more of a case of Cunningham being the better fighter. With his southpaw stance, solid left hands and the right hooks he kept landing all night, Cunningham was too good for Ogogo.

If Ogogo’s handlers believe his loss to Cunningham was a fluke thing, then they need to match him back up against him to find out for sure. I’m not holding my breath waiting for Ogogo to be matched back up against Cunningham. In fact, I DO NOT see Ogogo ever fighting Cunningham again. This is one of those match-ups where you can tell that Ogogo would never beat Cunningham no matter how many times they fight each other. Cunningham is just all wrong for Ogogo.

What we learned from this fight is a couple of things about Ogogo. One, he doesn’t seem to have very good stamina at all. By the end of the 3d round, Ogogo looked tired and pretty much finished. He appears to be fighting like he still has the stamina of a 3-round amateur fighter. You can blame that on the dreadful match-making that’s been done for Ogogo since he turned pro in 2013.

Ogogo hasn’t had to develop his stamina due to all the mismatches he’s had involving him facing weak opposition. If Ogogo’s management had started matching him with better opponents two years ago, then he likely would have built up his stamina by now. The other problem with Ogogo is his lack of defensive skills. He’s very easy to hit, and doesn’t seem capable of blocking shots.

You can’t say that Ogogo has a bad chin, because he was getting hit with some solid shots by Cunningham due to his leaky defense. Yeah, the chin is a question mark for Ogogo, but his poor defense is a bigger issue. He needs to fix his defense if he’s to go anywhere in boxing. If you throw Ogogo in the ring with the top middleweights like Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Billy Joe Saunders and Daniel Jacobs, he’s going to get blown apart by all of them. Ogogo needs major work on his flaws.

Right now, I think Ogogo needs a new trainer, and he needs someone to push the reset button on his career so that he can start over, because he’s not going in the right direction. Even before the Cunningham fight, I could see that Ogogo was not improving from the fighter that he was as an amateur. Ogogo was a good amateur, but he’s not a good professional fighter. I don’t think he’s got the boxing skills yet for him to do much of anything other than be a domestic level fighter. If Ogogo can’t beat a fighter in the class of Cunningham, then he has no chance of defeating the better fighters in the 160lb division.

Ogogo should stay away from fighting southpaws until he develops his skills. He’s too flawed right now to be fighting southpaws, and I think he would lose once again if he got put in with a halfway decent lefty. It might not even take a fighter of Cunningham’s caliber to beat Ogogo. He just looks beatable, period.

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