By Nate Anderson: Using his fine boxing ability and coupled with a high work rate, challenger Nicky Cook (29-1, 16 KOs) defeated Alex Arthur (26-2, 19 KOs) on Saturday night to win the WBC super featherweight title at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, Lancashire. Although the scores showed the bout to be close, with Cook winning by 117-112, 117-111 and 115-114, it wasn’t a bit close. Frankly, it was all Arthur could do to win two rounds – 8th and 12th – of the fight, because was so badly outclassed by the faster, better mover and more skilled Cook.

As good as Arthur had looked in winning his past two fights against Koba Gogoladze and Stephen Foster, he wasn’t nearly as good enough to beat Cook, who pounded him unceasingly for 12 continuous rounds without any trouble. Arthur, a plodding fighter that depends on having his opponents directly in front of him so that he can get his shots off, didn’t have clue one what to do with all the movement of Cook. It was something that he appeared to have not prepared for in the least, and made no adjustments during the fight to compensate for it. Without Cook standing directly in front of him long enough to land his big shots, Arthur was essentially stripped of all his weapons, making him more of a useless punching bag for the quicker and better skilled Cook.

Through the first seven rounds, Cook breezed through the action, jabbing constantly and landing a great many combinations to the head of Arthur. Other than a little bit of swelling under his right eye, Cook was unmarked and looked as fresh as he did when the fight had started. Arthur fought with a little more urgency in the 8th, landing some good right hands. It was unfortunate that Arthur waited so long to try and get his offense untracked, for he had gotten off to a dreadful start and by the time he showed any real life, he was hopelessly behind and needed a knockout to come back and win.

Cook, however, stepped back on the gas in the 9th round, and riddled the slower, more limited Arthur with crisp combinations. It was like he was fighting at several speeds ahead of the plodding Arthur, drilling him before his slow reflexes could even react to the punches hitting him. Cook moved around the ring, every once in a while stopping to land fast three punch combinations. Arthur was totally unsuited for this style of fighting and looked like a fighter with two left feet on the dance floor.

Only rarely did Arthur get a chance to throw any shots in the round, and when he did, it was mostly just a meaningless shot that Cook largely ignored. In the 10th and 11th rounds, Arthur, now looking desperate, stalked Cook around the ring taking shots as he came forward in straight lines.

Unable to move laterally, Arthur had no success in cutting off the ring on Cook and would have to wait for him to stop in order to get his own shots off. It was easy target practice for Cook, who picked off Arthur as he would come forward. In the 12th round, Cook appeared to let off a little finally. This allowed Arthur to narrowly win the round.