By Scott Gilfoid: British middleweight prospect Anthony Ogogo (11-1, 7 KOs) reportedly suffered a broken eye socket in his 8th round stoppage loss to southpaw Craig Cunningham (17-1, 4 KOs) last Saturday night at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, UK. Ogogo suffered a fracture in two places in his left eye.
Ogogo is expected back in the ring in 2017 after he recovers from his eye injury. It’s unclear whether he’ll need surgery or not.
Ogogo’s promoter Kalle Sauerland believes that the 27-year-old Ogogo had problems from the 1st round against Cunningham. However, it’s unclear precisely when the injury took place. Sauerland says a rematch between Ogogo and Cunningham might be a possibility in 2017.
I don’t know if Sauerland is serious about wanting to put Ogogo back in with Cunningham or if he’s just saying that because it makes for a good sound bite. A rematch might be bad news for Ogogo if he mixes it up with Cunningham again, because he was getting nailed by him all night long. Each time Ogogo would come forward to try and land anything, Cunningham would hit him with right hooks and then back away.
Cunningham looked like a British version of Andre Ward in that fight with the way he was picking Ogogo off with shots. Cunningham looked like he was on another level. That’s something that’s not going to change in a second fight. Cunningham appears to have the better boxing skills right now.
In my view, I think Ogogo needs to think about getting a new trainer when he comes back from the injury. Ogogo should also focus on fighting some other southpaws before he faces Cunningham again. Going straight into the rematch next year would be a disaster for Ogogo, because he doesn’t seem to know how to fight southpaws at this early stage in his career.
What was obvious was that Cunningham was the better fighter from round one. I don’t know if you can same the injury that Ogogo sustained being the reason for Cunningham being the better fighter. It just looked to me like Ogogo was throwing lead right hands, and didn’t realize he was going to be taking right counters from Cunningham all night long.
Ogogo had no defense for Cunningham’s straight left hands that he kept throwing down the pike all night long. I can understand an eye injury causing Ogogo problems, but he seemed incapable from the 1st round to block the left hands from Cunningham. From the opening seconds of the fight, Cunningham was nailing Ogogo.
Kalle Sauerland said this about Ogogo’s eye injury:
“It was clear from the first round that Ant had difficulties finding his range and timing and that something was off. This is a very serious injury similar to that which Mikkel Kessler suffered during the Super Six and we will now focus on recovery before launching a comeback in 2017. Perhaps directly with a rematch if that can be made. Hats off to Cunningham and his team for taking full advantage and boxing superbly.”
It sounds good what Sauerland says about Ogogo having problems finding his range in the 1st round, but I don’t think that’s when the injury occurred. Ogogo didn’t start getting worked over by Cunningham until the 2nd round. That would be the likely time that the injury occurred. Ogogo kept trying to throw right hands, and Cunningham was nailing him with hook hooks to the head.
It was during one of those exchanges that Cunningham dropped Ogogo with a right to the head. It should have never happened though. If Ogogo had gotten a clue that he couldn’t throw lead right hands, then he wouldn’t have been hit so much. Ogogo should have been jabbing and boxing instead of trying to pay Cunningham back each time he would land one of his left hands.
It looked to me like Ogogo got drawn into a fire fight against Cunningham, and the injury was the result of that. It was just dumb. Ogogo’s corner should have told him to relax, throw jabs, and to duck some of the right hooks that were being thrown at him. Heck, Ogogo would have been better if he’d switched to southpaw so that he could block the right hooks that he kept getting hit with. Ogogo has enough experience at the amateur level. He fought in the 2012 Olympics and won a bronze medal for Great Britain. He should have at least known how to beat a light hitting southpaw like Cunningham with a career 22% knockout ratio.
I think Ogogo should stay away from Cunningham for two or three years until he develops some boxing skills. He should get with Abel Sanchez in California and work on his skills so that this doesn’t keep happening.