Bellew-Chilemba scored a draw; Matthews-Crolla fight scored 12 round draw

By Boxing News - 03/30/2013 - Comments

By Eric Thomas: WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (19-1-1, 12 KO’s) put in a poor effort tonight in fighting to a 12 round draw against Isaac Chilemba (20-1-1, 9 KO’s) in fighting to a 12 round draw at the Echo Arena, in Liverpool, United Kingdom. Bellew seemed to be in control of the fight in the first five rounds, as he was the aggressor and wasn’t getting much back from the more defensively oriented Chilemba.

However, Chilemba’s excellent trainer Buddy McGirt was able to motivate Chilemba to start throwing more punches starting in the 6th, and Chilemba responded by taking the fight to a startled looking Bellew, and back him up for the rest of the fight.

It was pretty amazing to see this happening because Chilemba looked so overmatched in the first five rounds, and anyone who saw the fight had to agree that Bellew looked headed for victory at that point in the fight.

The final judges’ scores were 116-115 for Bellew, 116-112 for Chilemba and 114-114 even.

Bellew insisted after the fight that he should have been given the decision, but he clearly didn’t fight well enough to deserve the victory. Bellew had a huge problem trying to land his shots with Chilemba’s excellent head movement and quick reflexes. He was frequently able to make Bellew miss with his big power shots even when he was really close to him, and hit him with counter shots in return.

Chilemba didn’t have Bellew’s power, but it didn’t matter. He was hitting him hard to enough to snap Bellew’s head from the impact of the shots, and this led to Bellew fighting with a lot less confidence in the last six rounds as the roles reversed with Chilemba becoming the hunter and Bellew the hunted.

After the fight, Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed that there will be a rematch between the two fighters in the near future.

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In a lightweight rematch, Derry Mathews (32-8-2, 17 KO’s) and Anthony Crolla (25-4-1, 9 KO’s) fought to a 12 round draw. The final judges scores were 115-113 for Mathews, 115-113 for Crolla and 115-115 even. Mathews seemed to dominate with his power through most of the fight until tiring in the past three rounds. Crolla controlled the action in rounds 10 through 12. I had Mathews winning the fight by 9 rounds to 3 score.

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Other boxing action tonight:

Thomas Stalker pts 4 Andrew Harris
James Dickens UD 10 Jon Fernandes
Rocky Fielding TKO 6 Wayne Reed
Perry-Metcalf pts 4 Liam Griffiths
Khalid Yafai pts 8 Michael Ramabeletsa
Callum Smith RTD 1 Iain Jackson



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