By Nate Anderson: In an extremely exciting and action packed bout, once-beaten middleweight prospect Sam Webb (11-1, 3 KOs) defeated 37 year-old Paul Dyer (18-9, 1 KOs) by a six-round decision on Saturday night at the Mountbatten Centre, Portsmouth, in Hampshire. Webb, 27, dropped Dyer in two times in the fight -once each in the 2nd and 3rd rounds – but then tired out after the 4th round and had to fight hard as Dyer took control in the 5th and 6th rounds.
Webb fought well in the first round, immediately attacking Dyer with hard hooks to the body and head. Dyer, a tall rangy fighter with excellent boxing skills, used his height (or at least he tried to) and jab to try and keep Webb at bay. However, Webb wouldn’t be denied and kept coming forward pressing the action and looking like a bigger, slightly less powerful version of Ricky Hatton as he landed some terrific hooks in the round. Like Hatton, Webb thought little of his own defense and was caught often as he came diving in to deliver his huge left hooks.
Dyer, who perhaps is well aware of this style of fighting, did much the same as Juan Lazcano did in his recent bout with Hatton, by retreating to the side and clipping Webb as he would come lunging in for his big hooks. Near the end of the round, Webb connected with sight consecutive shots to the body and head, each one of them thrown with tremendous power and accuracy. Dyer, to his credit, took the shots without any signs of being bothered in the least by them.
In the second round, Dyer started out trying to jab Webb, hoping that he could try and contain him to the outside. It worked for all of 10 seconds, as Webb almost immediately worked his way into punching range against the taller 5’11” Dyer and nailed him with a 1-2 combination to the head, then a big right hand that dropped Dyer to the canvas. While falling to the canvas, Dyer grabbed a hold of the rope and continued holding it as after he fell.
Afterwards, he protested to the referee Ken Curtis, saying that he had slipped and hadn’t been punched. The referee, however, was having none of it and counted the knockdown. Webb seemed to think it was a legitimate knockdown, because he tore into Dyer tagging him with huge shots to the head, trying to end it in this round. Dyer, though, moved well around the ring and looked incredibly smooth and a lot more skilled than what I’m accustomed to seeing with better known middleweights.
In the 3rd round, it was Dyer who started off attacking, banging Webb with good shots to the head, one in particular a hard left uppercut that snapped Webb’s head back violently. Without having done almost anything in the round in the first minute, which was quite strange for Webb, he suddenly unleashed a tremendous left-right combination that dropped Dyer to the canvas. This time, there was no question that it was a legitimate knockdown.
After receiving a standing eight count from the referee, Dyer commenced to attacking Webb, as if the knockdown had never occurred at all. Webb, though, ignored these weak shots and began landing powerful combinations to the body and head of Dyer, backing him up the ropes and punishing him hard. The round ended with Dyer taking huge shots against the ropes and looking as if he were on the verge of being knocked out.
In the 4th round, after taking brutal punishment from Webb for the first half of the round, Dyer suddenly began moving around the ring and looking a lot like a Joe Calzaghe clone, tagging Webb with fast combinations and leaning away from him when he attempted his own shots. It was an amazing transformation, for he looked like a completely different fighter at this point. I can’t really explain the change in Dyer, other than perhaps he finally was getting warmed up and more relaxed fighting in front of the large audience. Whatever the case, he was nearly untouchable from this point in the fight, hitting Webb at will with combinations, moving and making him miss constantly.
In the 5th and 6th rounds, it was all Dyer as he fought incredibly well from the outside showing movement and excellent combinations. He fought most of the time with guard held low, but still rarely was hit because of his movement and his ability to lean away from shots. It’s unfortunate, however, that he waited too long to began fighting well, because by this time he’d given up too much with his two knockdowns earlier in the fight. Nevertheless, he fought incredibly well for a fighter of his age and looked more like a fighter in his 20s than a fighter nearing 40.
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