By Tony Krebs: Former WBA super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine (33-3, 23 KOs) survived a 3rd round knockdown to come back and defeat opponent Crazy Kim (28-5, 24 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Entertainment Centre, Newcastle, in New South Wales, Australia. Mundine, 33, who recently surrendered his WBA super middleweight title to face Sam Soliman rather than his number #1 challenger Mikkel Kessler, has taken a lot of heat lately for not facing top fighters. This trend continued with Crazy Kim, who had never fought a fighter of Mundine’s class in his career and it showed, as Mundine easily outclassed him through their 10-round bout winning every round except for the 3rd in which Mundine was dropped by a big left hook from Kim.
The shot staggered then dropped a stunned-looking Mundine who looked as if this wasn’t in the script for the fight. He immediately got up, and shook off the effects of the knockout and continued to dominate the fight as if the knockout hadn’t occurred. Kim would occasionally land a big shot or two in every round for the remainder of the fight, but he was mostly limited to only that because of his poor hand speed and boxing ability. He did, however, show a good chin, taking Mundine’s best shots without going down or getting hurt.
In the 1st round, Mundine unveiled a new style of fighting, looking like a poor imitation of Roy Jones Jr., a fighter that he’s been sparring with. Instead of adopting some of Jones’ style, Mundine appeared to be copying it to the letter, which didn’t seem to be working well for him at this early stage. The things that Jones used to get away with, keeping his left hand low by his side and pot shotting with his right hand, Mundine had much less success with.
Indeed, Kim was able to land frequently to the head of Mundine when he was keeping his guard low, and was able to catch him coming in when he would try to pot shot with a lead right hand. It was more than mildly amusing to see Mundine struggle with his new style, but at least he picked a weak enough opponent for him to work on it, because if he faced good super middleweight or middleweight, Mundine in all probability would have lost.
Early on in the 2nd, it was obvious that Kim had no chance whatsoever to win the fight, other than to try and score a miracle knockout. He was just too slow, too over his head, and way unskilled to be facing a fighter as good as Mundine, even though he was all screwed up with his new style of fighting. Kim seemed to enjoy taking shots from Mundine, frequently encouraging him to come forward and hit him with shots. Normally when a fighter does this, they have a trick that they’re trying to pull on their opponent, so they can hit them with something. In Kim’s case, he just seemed to want to get hit, like he took please in it for some reason.
In the 3rd round, Mundine got careless with his new Roy Jones Jr. style of fighting, and got tagged with a big left hook from Kim at the start of the round, causing Mundine to back up, give Kim a weird look, as if to say “how could you?”, then slowly fall backwards on his back with his head crashing against the canvas. He got up instantly, looking more embarrassed than hurt, and continued to fight just as before. Kim, showing his lack of awareness, spent the rest of the round throwing punches to the body of Mundine and completely leaving his head alone.
Seemed strange, if not crazy, for Kim to suddenly stop throwing to the head at the one instance that he finally hurt Mundine with a big shot, but I guess he had a reason for doing so. Whatever the reason was, it didn’t work and it allowed Mundine to escape the round without visiting the canvas again. Against a better fighter, Mundine would have been finished for the night in all probability, but he was safe against Kim.
Mundine fought well in the 4th and 5th rounds, although he continued to take punishment because of his new fighting style, which allowed Kim to hit him often right hooks to the head and body over his low left hand which was pinned to his sides. Kim continued to motion for Mundine to come in, but now it wasn’t working as much before. I guess Mundine was still thinking of that left hook that he walked into during the 3rd.
In round six through nine, Mundine continued to dominate the fight with ease. Kim was mostly a big punching bag during these rounds, and landing less and less with his own shots. At the start of the 8th, Mundine tried to throw a left hook from too far, another Roy Jones Jr. move, and Kim took advantage of it by tagging Mundine with a big right hand, cutting him over his right eye. Mundine looked as if he was trying to showboat at the time and paid for it big time with the cut. As if to get revenge, he began loading up with his shots for the remainder of the round and near the end, he stunned Kim briefly. It was only for a second, and when he came into try and land additional shots, Kim was waiting for him. grabbing him in a clinch and nailing him twice while holding onto him.
In the 10th round, Mundine played it safe, staying on the outside and pot shotting with single punches from a distance. Kim was far too slow to do much, and even when Mundine came in punching range, Kim wasted his time by throwing mostly body shots rather than trying to go for the head.