In a shocking upset, junior middleweight Alex Bunema (29-5-2, 15 KOs) knocked #4 ranked International Boxing Federation junior middleweight Roman Karmazin (36-3-1, 23 KOs) down two times in the process of stopping in the 10th round of a scheduled 12-round bout for the World Boxing Association Inter-Continental light middleweight title on Saturday night at the Madison Square Garden, in New York City, New York. Karmazin, 35, had pretty much had his way with the 32 year-old Bunema all fight long, dominating him with left hooks and jabs. However, Karmazin, who makes it a practice of carrying his hands to his sides rather than keeping them up high and protecting his chin, got decked with a left hook from Bunema in the opening moments of the 10th round.
It would have taken a miracle for Karmazin to have survived the rest of the round after that knockdown, as he was badly hurt. As soon as he made it up, Bunema, a fighter not ranked in the top 15 and merely brought in as an opponent for Karmazin, began wildly throwing punches, many of them missing. However, after missing a handful of shots, Bunema finally connected with pay dirt, tagging Karmazin with a big left and then a right hand that dropped him to the canvas, where he lay there almost senseless. The referee Johnny Callas then promptly stopped the bout at 1:36 of the 10th round.
In the early rounds, Karmazin had little trouble with Buema, who is mainly a fighter with a good right hand and little else. Buema rarely threw anything other than a right hand, which is quite powerful, but he rarely thew it enough for it to be much of use for him. When Bunema would let it go, he’d throw it from far away and badly telegraph it. I suppose that’s why he’s done so little with his career, mainly being known for beating a shot Vince Phillips by split decision, and losing to Jermain Taylor, Kassim Ouma and Bronko McKart.
However, Karmazin seemed to be the perfect opponent for Bunema to fight, for Roman has a bad habit of keeping his hands down at his sides when he fights. Karmzin easily controlled the 1st round, hitting Bunema repeatedly with hooks to the head and body. Near the end of the round, however, Bunema gave a glimpse of what would come later, when he landed a big right hand to the head of Karmazin. It was a good shot, made possible because of Karmazin’s lack of defense.
In the 2nd round, Bunema several more big right hand shots to the head of Karmazin, and although Bunema was getting punched silly in the round by Karmazin, I gave the round to Bunema because of the three powerful right hands. In between rounds, the southpaw Karmazin opted not to use his stool, instead remaining standing as his trainer Freddie Roach gave him instructions. It seemed as if Karmazin wasn’t throwing enough combinations, for appeared to be in a kind of a chess match with Bunema for some reason. Not sure why he was holding back, but it wasn’t helping him and his trainer wanted him to let his hands go more.
In rounds three through eight, Karmazin had his way with Bunema, hitting him with triple hooks to the body with both hands, and making the fight totally one-sided. It was so uncompetitive, that it wasn’t interesting to watch, because Bunema seemed to be lacking in the fundamentals of boxing, and it didn’t seem that he’d be able to do anything, aside from a knockout, in order to win.
The fight started to turn around for Bunema in the 9th round, when he landed a few big right hand shots to the head of Karmazin. Though Karmazin took the shots well, responding with a flurry of his own punches to shut Bunema down, it was something that Karmazin should have been more alert to going into the next round. Instead of keeping his distance from Bunema, who had little other chance at winning the fight other than a knockout, Karmazin opted to stand directly in front of him and trade shots.
Early in the 10th round, this practice of staying directly in front of Bunema hurt Karmazin, when Bunema knocked him down with a short left hook to the head. After bravely getting up from the knocked down, Karmazin was still glassy-eyed and had little chance of making it the rest of the way out the round. Bunema moved in and landed several shots, driving Karmazin to the ropes where Bunema finished him off with a left-right combination, sending Karmazin to the canvas for the final time.
This was a particularly bad loss for the 35 year-old Karmazin for he’d been trying to work his way back into another title shot after losing his IBF junior middleweight title to Cory Spinks by a questionable majority decision in July 2006. At 35, Karmazin will be lucky if he can recover from this loss, as it will take him a considerable amount of time to work his way back up.
As for Bunema, the wins helps him, but I doubt it will put him into a title shot, since he’s not ranked in the top 15. Even if it were to, which it won’t, he’d badly lose to title holder Cory Spinks. I’d pick most of the top 15 fighters over Bunema, because his work rate is poor and he only fights with only his right hand.