Nuzhnenko Fights To Technical Draw With Garcia

By Boxing News - 04/21/2008 - Comments

nuzh57.jpgBy Erik Schmidt: Fighting for the WBA interim welterweight title, undefeated Ukrainian Yuriy Nuzhnenko (27-0-1, 13 KOs) fought to a 10-round technical draw with Irving Garcia (16-3-2, 8 KOs) from Puerto Rico, after the fight was stopped in the 10th round due to swelling on the forehead of Nuzhnenko, 31, from a prior head butt on Saturday night at the Sports Palace, in Kiev, Ukraine. It went to the cards and the final scores were 96-95, for Nuzhnenko, 95-95 and 95-95.

I had Garcia winning nine of the ten rounds quite easily, outpunching and out-landing Nuzhnenko in every round of the fight. The decision was bad, of course, but considering the location of the fight – in Nuzhnenko’s native Ukraine – it came to no surprise that he would get at least a draw out of it. However, the fight wasn’t close by a long shot. Garcia, 29, dominated the fight from the opening moments, showing an excellent jab and straight right hand that he was able hit Nuzhnenko with constantly in the fight, swelling up his face badly along the way.

I got to give credit to Garcia for being a good sport after the final judge’s decision was announced because he must have felt bad inwardly, feeling that he had been wronged. Then again, he wasn’t the ranked at the top like Nuzhnenko, meaning that it would have taken something spectacular for an unknown fighter like Garcia to pull off an upset of this magnitude. What it does tell me, though, is that Nuzhnenko isn’t that good of a fighter.

Based on what I saw of Nuzhnenko, I think he would be overmatched against any of the current top 10 welterweights in the WBA, in particular Miguel Cotto. That would be a slaughter of major proportions. Nuzhnenko couldn’t even beat Garcia, and against someone like Cotto, I predict the fight would last all of one round with Cotto quickly stopping Nuzhnenko with a hard body shot.

Enough of that, let’s get to the fight. The first round was controlled by Garcia, who used his long jab to pound the slower, weaker Nuzhnenko. Who had big problems getting in punching distance without taking hard combinations from the quicker Garcia. The round ended with Garcia having landed the last 14 of 15 punches thrown. It wasn’t a close round.

By the second round, Nuzhnenko was bleeding like a cut pig from the forehead after clashing heads with Garcia. The cut, on the scalp, bled profusely all down Nuzhnenko’s face, into his eyes causing him to blink constantly. The blood got everywhere else as well, splattering all over both fighters and the canvas. Again, Garcia won the round due to his superior work rate and punches landed.

In the third through fifth round, Garcia continued with his superior work rate, hitting Nuzhnenko with beautiful right hands and excellent left hooks to the head. It was made easier for Garcia because of all the blood, which no doubt was making it hellish for Nuzhnenko to try and see anything clearly. That’s no excuse for Nuzhnenko’s bad performance, because he would have likely been taking a beating regardless, but it certainly didn’t help matters much.

In the 6th round, Nuzhnenko finally appeared to win a round after Garcia looked to be taking a round off. Still, it was a close round as Garcia attacked viciously in the last thirty seconds of the round, hitting Nuzhnenko with some terrific shots.

In round seven though nine, Garcia pulled completely away from Nuzhnenko, battering him with right hands, left hooks and jabs and showing a lot of movement. The movement made it even harder for Nuzhnenko to land anything at all, for when he would finally catch up to Garcia, he’d take a couple of shots to the head and not be able to get his own punches in with any regularity.
By the 9th round, Nuzhnenko had suddenly started swelling badly on his forehead; a large hematoma was forming that looked nasty and potentially dangerous. The referee stopped the action to examine the bruise, and told Nuzhnenko that he would be stopping the fight soon because of it. This caused Nuzhnenko to start fighting with great urgency for about 30 seconds, but he landed little for all his anxiety, and again it was Garcia that won the round.

In the 10th round, Nuzhnenko had a look of resignation, as if knowing that the fight would be stopped soon and he was no longer going all out like in the previous round to attempt to knock Garcia out. Nuzhnenko, not a particularly hard puncher, perhaps realized that he couldn’t have knocked Garcia out under any circumstances, and figured it would be better off at least trying to just win a round rather than attempting something that he wasn’t capable of. After the end of the 10th round, the fight went to the scorecards and was ruled a technical draw.



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