By Chet Mills: Rendall Munroe (15-1, 7 KOs) defended his EBU super bantamweight title, stopping French challenger Salem Bouaita (19-13, 6 KOs) at the end of the 7th round when Bouaita’s corner stopped the fight in between rounds. Bouaita, 33, a fighter with an usual fighting style which resembles nothing I’ve ever seen before, fought well in the first two rounds as he landed shots from every angle against the champion Munroe. However, Bouaita was never disciplined enough to keep up enough fire power to win either of the rounds despite his wild attacks in the first couple of rounds.
Munroe, 27, who recently won the EBU super bantamweight championship with a 12-round majority decision over Kiko Martinez in March 2008, used a hard left hook and right hand to keep Bouaita on the move, not wanting to stand and trade with him for long. Munroe fought much better in the 2nd round after getting a little more used to Bouaita’s wild style of fighting. However, Munroe still had huge problems landing his own shots because of Bouaita leaning forward with his hands down and moving side to side with his torso to prevent Munroe from landing.
When Munroe would come in close, Bouaita would throw hooks from almost the ground level and then immediately change directions with his next punches which came from every which way. Very hard to predict and adapt to. Just watching him fight was a tremendous eyesore.
In the third round, Bouaita punch output began to drop off a bit as he looked to beginning to tire somewhat from all his herky jerky movements which had to be eating up his energy levels more rapidly than he would have liked. He threw a lot of wild shots in the round and only landed a couple of decent shots. For his part, Munroe mostly was content to tag Bouaita with left hands, hitting him with hooks and straight lefts down the pipe.
In the 4th round, Munroe had a lot of problems trying to land his shots as Bouaita began moving a lot around the ring and throwing punches wildly as he went. It got so bad that Munroe disparately began throwing shots as Bouaita would come rushing by, either missing him or hitting him in the back of the head. It was an ugly round. Bouaita landed some good body shots after failing at connecting with head shots due to Munroe blocking most of them thrown in that direction.
In the 5th round, Munroe’s superior power began to get to Bouaita, who was finding himself getting hit a little more than he had in previous rounds. He wasn’t comfortable with the big left hand shots that Munroe was hitting him with, even though it still wasn’t that many. Bouaita began to make the mistake of retreating to the ropes which made Munroe’s job much easier in attacking Bouaita. It was a strong round for Munroe who landed some hard left hands late in the round that got Bouaita’s attention.
Bouaita attacked wildly with shots in the 6th round, missing by a mile and looking a lot like a raw amateur. Indeed, he looked nothing like a challenger for a title in that he seemed so badly unskilled in comparison to the more calm, and technically skilled Munroe. Additionally, Bouaita began to look really fatigued in this round and moved about as if he were totally spent. At the end of the round, Bouaita clashed heads with Munroe, opening a cut on the scalp of Munroe.
In the 7th round, Munroe caught Bouaita frequently against the ropes and pounded him with heavy shots to the head. Bouaita would quickly initiate a clinch and then move to the center of the ring where he was able to use his legs to avoid many of Munroe’s shots. However, it wasn’t long before Bouaita was once again driven to the ropes where he would take even more punishment from Munroe.
The rounded ended with Munroe land well to the head and body. Shortly after the round ended, Bouaita’s corner stopped the fight to prevent Bouaita from sustaining any more punishment. He hadn’t won a round and was hopelessly out of the fight with little chance to win.