By David Larh: In an impressive performance, unbeaten middleweight contender Joe Greene (18-0, 13 KOs) stopped Francisco Antonio Mora (52-13, 35 KOs) in the 10th round on Saturday night on the undercard of Wladimir Klitschko vs. Sultan Ibragimov heavyweight unification title bout at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Mora, 34, was knocked down four times in the bout, and at the end of the 10th round he collapsed to the canvas after bumping heads with Greene. At that point, the fight was stopped moments later due to Mora having sustained a vicious beating over the course of the fight. Earlier, the ringside doctor had been looking to stop the fight due to an ear problem for Mora, in addition to the fact that he was taking a pounding in a one-sided fight from the 22 year-old Greene.
The southpaw Greene, 2004 National Golden Gloves Middleweight Champion, looked incredible throughout the fight, hitting Mora at will with jabs, straight left hands and mixture of hooks to the body and head. In contrast to unbeaten middleweight John Duddy, who struggled on the undercard against Walid Smichet, Greene looked noticeably better than Duddy.
In the first round, Greene peppered Mora with jabs to the head, mixing in uppercuts right hooks to the body. Mora, a former
WBO Latino light middleweight and WBA Fedelatin middleweight champion, attempted few shots of his own. However, he landed only a few, but none had any effect on slowing down the busy offense of Greene.
In the second round, Greene dropped Mora with a short right hook at the beginning of the round, hitting him and causing him to go down mostly from being off balance. Greene stayed patient after the knockdown, landing a large number of jabs. However, Greene suddenly opened up with two right hooks to the body that dropped Mora to the canvas for the second time in the round. Mora complained that it was a punch to the back that knocked him down, but the referee would have none of it.
Greene would continue to dominate Mora in the third round, hitting him with big body shots and uppercuts to the head. Mora had no defense against Greene’s straight left hand as he was tagged with it over and over again without making any adjustments. Mora was dropped two more times in the fourth round, once from a right hook to the head and another time from a right hand body shot. Greene could to anything he wanted with Mora, without worry of anything coming back at him.
A point was deducted from Greene in the sixth round for a low blow. Mora, who’d been complaining earlier about having been hit by a low blow, seemed to have had an effect on the referee, who quickly took a point away from Green on only the second time in the fight having thrown a low blow. The point had no bearing on the fight, for Greene was having an easy time with Mora, hitting him with virtually ever shot he and making him miss when he attempted to fire back with his own shots.
By the 7th round, Greene appeared to ease up on Mora, no longer putting power into his shots and treating the fight as if it were one big sparring session. Mora went down again in this round after getting clipped with a right hook at the start of the round, but the referee said it was from a push. However, it looked like another legitimate knockdown. In between the 8th and 9th rounds, the ringside doctor examined Mora for an ear problem and was on the verge of stopping it, but let it continue. The fight should have been stopped in my view, because Mora wasn’t throwing any punches back at Greene was taking a beating. Greene, however, showed mercy in that he didn’t try to unload on Mora, and mostly used him as a jabbing dummy. Greene did land one impressive flurry at the start of the 9th round, but he quickly backed off and resumed jabbing following that.
In the 10th round, Greene came out on fire, hitting Mora with some tremendous shots and seeming to want to end the fight in this round. Mora took them, however, and seemed to have weathered the storm until the final seconds of the round when Greene clashed heads with him. Greene immediately backed up, wincing with pain. Mora looked over at Greene, wiped his nose and then dropped to the canvas bleeding from his nose. Very strange delayed reaction. The referee then came over and after a commotion and a certain amount of uncertainty, the fight was finally stopped.
It was a very good win for Greene, who showed excellent skills against Mora, making much more of an impression on the night than Duddy. At this point, Greene appears more than good enough to beat the WBA and IBF middleweight champions Felix Sturm and Arthur Abraham. And, of course, Greene looks worlds better than Duddy. That kind of goes without saying, though.