Lamon Brewster Makes Comeback On August 30th

By Boxing News - 08/01/2008 - Comments

brewster353535.jpgBy Eric Thomas: Former World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster (33-4, 29 KOs) will be making a comeback after a year away from boxing when he returns to the ring on August 30th against a still yet to be determined opponent at the Cincinnati Gardens, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Brewster, now 35, hasn’t fought since losing by a sixth round TKO to IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko on July 2nd, 2007. At the time of the fight, Brewster was coming off another one-year layoff following surgery to repair a detached retina of his left eye that he sustained in his war-like bout with Serguei Lyakhovich on April 1, 2006.

Brewster’s choice of Wladimir as his first opponent after such a long period away from the ring, not to mention after serious eye surgery, seems somewhat foolhardy in hindsight. However, Brewster, who previously stopped Wladimir by a 5th round TKO in April 2004, probably couldn’t resist both the risk and the pay to fight for a title. After all, most fighters work hard for a title shot, with few ever getting chances to compete for a title. For that reason, one can hardly blame Brewster for choosing to fight Wladimir under less than optimal conditions for himself. After Brewster’s second long layoff, the obvious question would be whether he still has anything left to give to boxing?

To be sure, he looked like he wasn’t there in his last fight with Klitschko in July 2007, just walking forward continuously and taking jabs to the head without firing anything back. For those who have seen past fights of Brewster, ones against fighters like Kali Meehan, Lyakhovich, Andrew Golota and Luan Krasniqi, in which Brewster took shots and came back with powerful hooks and combinations, it was sad to see him seeming to just go through the motions against Wladimir in the second fight.

After taking a ton of jabs to the head for five rounds, Brewster began getting hit with combinations in the 6th round and was slightly stunned with one of them. After the round ended, the fight was stopped by Brewster’s trainer who persuaded Brewster to give up to save himself from having to take more punishment.

It seemed that Brewster was hoping that Wladimir would punch himself out by throwing a lot of punches for the first half of the fight, but it wasn’t happening; Wladimir was throwing few power shots, and was conserving energy by throwing only his jab, which when he’s throwing it with full force like he was against Brewster, is similar to a power shot.

If Brewster returns with later on this month fighting in a similar fashion as he fought against Klitchko, he may very well end up losing badly, no matter whom he fights. Brewster never was much of a boxer, even in his prime, instead winning the vast majority of his fights by slugging it out with his opponents. Up until his second fight with Klitschko, Brewster never had problem with going to war with his opponents, a factor which made him so popular to many boxing fans. However, it seemed that he didn’t have the fire inside against Klitschko the second time around, perhaps wanting to save himself from absorbing a great deal of punishment like he had in some of his other bouts.

Unfortunately, by fighting passively, he only invited all of the worst things that he may have been trying to avoid. Always a slow starter, Brewster has made the mistake in many of his fights of giving too much respect to his opponents, forgetting almost completely the fact that his power made him more than equal to most of them. In fights against Krasniqi, Lyakhovich, Klitschko and Meehan, Brewster waited around a long time before opening up with his own shots. By the time that he did start throwing punches, he often found himself trailing by a considerable margin in the fight.

Only in his fight with Golota, whom he knocked down three times in the 1st round, did Brewster come out fast and go all out from the start of the bout. I remember watching the fight, and thinking that if Brewster could fight like that in every fight, there were few fighters that would make it out of the first round. And, in doing so, Brewster would save himself from having to take all the needless punishment that he’s been forced to absorb in too many of his fights. It almost seems that he doesn’t know what he’s capable doing in the ring.

Before taking on Klitschko for the second bout, Brewster began training with trainer Buddy McGirt, a person known for building defensive skills for his fighters. Considering that Brewster had fought his entire boxing career as a slugger, it seemed like a poor choice, and one doomed for failure. If anything, Brewster doesn’t need a trainer that can fix his defensive game, because his offense is his defense.

What he needs is a trainer like Javier Capetillo, the trainer for Antonio Margarito, who can teach him to let his hands go much more often. If he could punch nonstop like Margarito, I think even now at 35, Brewster would probably be able to beat most, if not all, the top heavyweights in the division even the soft-chinned Wladimir.



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