Boxing News: Bradley Decisions Cherry

By Boxing News - 09/15/2008 - Comments

cherry35.jpgBy Aaron Klein: Making his first defense of his title, undefeated WBC light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (23-0, 11 KOs) easily defeated the tough Edner Cherry (24-6-2, 12 KOs) by a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 117-110 and 119-109, all for Bradley. It’s been four months since Bradley, 25, defeated Junior Witter to capture the WBC light welterweight title, but Bradley showed once again why many boxing fans are calling him the best fighter in the light welterweight division, better even than Ricky Hatton, by putting on a dominating performance against the 26 year-old Cherry.

Although going into the fight it was thought that Cherry would put on a good fight, Bradley had too much speed for him to deal with. Cherry was knocked down in the 8th round after getting hit with a big right hand from Bradley. Aside from that, there were no other knockdowns in the fight, and Cherry was unable to hurt Bradley with any of his own big right hand shots. In the 11th round, Cherry landed two right hands while Bradley was off balance after having thrown a punch, which caused Bradley to almost fall. However, he wasn’t hurt by the shots, only off balance after having thrown a punch of his own.

Cherry, thinking that he had him hurt, went after him with a flurry of punches but was quickly tied up in a clinch by Bradley. After the two fighters broke apart, Bradley once against resumed his domination of Cherry, hitting him with lightning fast combinations and controlling the action easily. Having seen Cherry in quite a few fights, it was shocking to see him so badly outclassed by Bradley. Cherry usually fights in the trenches with his opponents, hitting them with big shots at close range, outworking them and wearing them down with punches.

However, with Bradley, Cherry mostly missed his shots all night long and quickly grew frustrated with his inability to land with any kind of regularity. At the same time, he was getting hit quite a lot by Bradley, who fired off blazing fast shots, mostly combinations, at any chance he could get. The difference between the two fighter’s hand speed was staggering, for Bradley was much more quicker than Cherry, so much so that Cherry was often hit several times before he even had a chance to wind up with a punch of his own.

Looking discouraged with himself more than a little, Cherry fought with little energy in the middle rounds. However, he seemed to pick up energy as the fight winded down, and was able to land some good right hands in the 9th, 10th and 11th rounds. The problem was, he was getting hit with a dizzying amount of shots from Bradley, and couldn’t come close to winning any rounds. His only chance, it seems, was to try and score a knockout. This he gamely tried in rounds 11 and 12, but he couldn’t land nearly enough shots consecutively to put Bradley in any kind of trouble. It was like watching a teach and a pupil, because Bradley was so much better than Cherry it wasn’t even close. In the end, Bradley had way too much ability for him to handle and the fight turned into route by the last half of the fight.

Watching how easily Bradley dominated Cherry, I could only guess what Bradley could do to the equally slow Ricky Hatton, who would I think would be badly out of his league if he were to ever fight him. I doubt that he would, though. I can see Hatton coming up with some kind of excuse or another for not wanting to fight him.