By Scott Gilfoid: Italian light welterweight Gianluca Branco (41-2-1, 21 KOs) defeated Britain’s Colin Lynes (31-4, 12 KOs) by a 12-round split decision to take away his EBU (European) light welterweight title tonight at the PalaRuffini, Torino, in Piemonte, Italy. Branco, 37, did little in the first half of the fight, seeming to lose all six rounds. To make matters worse, Branco was knocked down in the 2nd round. After six rounds, it looked like an easy night for Lynes, 30, who was faster and had much better defensive skills than the slow-footed Branco. However, starting in the 7th round, Branco began to land heavy shots and appeared to hurt Lynes at the end of the round with a couple of big right hands.
It appeared that Lynes did more than enough in the final five rounds to get the decision, appearing to win both the 9th and 10th rounds and then giving away the final 11th and 12th to Branco. I wasn’t all the surprised that Branco ended up with the decision, though, because the fight was fought in Italy, Branco’s home, and figured it was par for the course. Despite being the champion, Lynes would have to fight as if he were the challenger in order to ensure that he got to hold onto his title given the situation.
Lynes, 30, looked good in rounds one through four, using a lot of movement, bobbing weaving and excellent head movement to keep Branco from landing. It hardly seemed necessary though, because Branco hardly let his hands go other than throwing a steady jab, which often came up short. Lynes landed particularly well with his hard jab, which he buried often in Branco’s midsection and head. In the second round, Lynes surprised Branco with a powerful right hand in the first minute of the round, sending Branco to the canvas.
It appeared to be a flash knockdown, however, with Branco seeming more embarrassed than hurt by the shot. Lynes still went after Branco after he got up, but was unable to follow up with anything significant that would repeat the knockdown. It stayed essentially one-sided through the fourth, as Lynes was just too skillful and fast for the plodding Branco.
For his part, Branco seemed only capable of jabbing over and over again, and had this strange habit of stretching his arms out to his sides periodically, as if trying to get the blood to flow out of his arms. When he did this, he would be a sitting duck for shots by Lynes, Lucky for Branco, Lynes seemed to hold back at times, letting Branco get a free stretch without having to pay for it. Nevertheless, it’s a bad flaw that Branco has and he needs to fix that if he plans on fighting better fighters in the future.
In rounds five and six, Lynes continued dominating Branco, hitting him many more times than he was getting hit back. At this point, none of the rounds had been remotely close and even if I wanted to be kind to Branco, I couldn’t score any rounds for him because he was simply getting out-landed by a wide margin.
This would all change in the 7th round when Branco, taking shots as usual near the end of the round, finally let his hands go and it Lynes with several hard right hands, hurting him and causing him to cover up. Branco then tagged him with a series of punches until the round ended seconds later.
At this point, the crowd had finally become a factor as they encouraged Branco to keep landing shots. For this, he was only too happy to oblige, hitting Lynes with some really hard right hands to the head. Branco looked like a completely different fighter, almost a 100% better than the predictable jabbing machine in the first six rounds of the fight. However, Branco was far behind from my perspective and needed to either sweep all the remaining rounds and hope that the scoring was tilted in his favor or by ending things with a knockout. Unfortunately, he did neither, for Lynes appeared to easily win both the 9th and 10th rounds, out-landing Branco by a wide margin in both rounds. Though Branco landed several hard shots in both rounds, which was about all he did land. In return, he took a tremendous amount of shots and didn’t come close to winning either of the rounds.
For some reason, Lynes decided to take it easy in the final two rounds of the fight, and appeared to lose both the 11th and 12th rounds largely due to inactivity. Branco took advantage of Lynes lack of offense by hitting him repeatedly with right hands over the course of the final two rounds, with an occasional rabbit punch mixed in. It was a fatal mistake on Lynes’ part to take it easy in the final six minutes because he could have easily have won the fight if he had at least let his hands go in one of the rounds.
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