By Eric Thomas: While watching former WBA super welterweight champion Junior Witter (36-2, 21 KOs) struggle in this past Saturday’s bout with Timothy Bradley, I got a general sense that Witter, 34, is past his prime and should really strongly consider ending his career. He looked well past it and his advanced age seems really has nothing to do with my thoughts on this. Many fighters still can fight effectively well past 34, Lennox Lewis, a prime example of that. But, in Witter’s case, he looked old and slow from the very get go, struggling with both his timing and his speed against the younger, stronger Bradley.
I’ve seen many of Witter’s fights and have been a big fan of his for many years, and for that reason I kept out hope for him that he would somehow eventually start fighting like his old self and take over the fight. The problem was, this isn’t the same fighter that I’ve come to know in the past. Witter’s speed was largely gone and his defense, once impregnable and nearly flawless, was wide open for pretty much anything that Bradley chose to throw his way. When Witter was dropped in the 6th round by a badly telegraphed right hand from Bradley, that pretty much clued me in that Witter just doesn’t have it anymore.
He saw the punch coming, yet he could do next to nothing to attempt to block the shot. Heck, anyone could have seen that wide shot coming and put up an arm to block it but in Witter’s case, the old reflexes just weren’t working like they used to.
Just where does Witter go from here? At 34, he just doesn’t have a whole lot of options available to him. Most of the younger fighters are ones that would probably have too much strength and speed for Witter to deal with and he doesn’t have too much time to work his way back into contention like younger fighters do. Bradley, now that he as the championship belt, isn’t going to waste his time fighting Witter and will look for more important fights against younger fighters.
Though Witter can certainly hang around the sport, which is what he’s said recently, but I don’t see good things happening for him, I really don’t. He had his chance and made the most of it. It’s unfortunate that he never was able to land a big money fight against Ricky Hatton, but that’s the way it goes.