By Jim Dower: Tonight, Holly Holm (22-1-2, 6 KOs) will face Mary Jo Sanders (25-1, 8 KOs) in a long anticipated rematch for the vacant International Boxing Association Female light middleweight title at the The Palace, in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The two fighters fought four months ago in June, with Holm, 27, winning a controversial unanimous decision by the scores of 98-92, 98-92 and 97-93. At best, I gave Holm three of the 10 rounds and even that would be a stretch, because she looked terribly amateurish in comparison to the much more polished Sanders, missing often and throwing wild punches that hit nothing. In reality, I think Holm came close to winning only round, the sixth, but even in that round I think she lost it because Sanders landed the much cleaner shots.
Much of the time, Holm would lower her head and come charging forward while flailing both of her arms. As you would expect, she would rarely land anything in attacks like this. Instead, Sanders, 34, would calmly tag her with hard combinations to the head, picking off her wild charges with ease and great accuracy. However, Sanders was at somewhat of a disadvantage given the fact that the fight was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Holm’s home town. The crowd was a huge factor for Holm, screaming loudly every time she would come rushing in with her wild shots, giving the impression that she was landing punches despite the fact that I could rarely see any shots from her that landed.
Sanders looked like the much more skilled fighter by far on that night, and the one that did the majority of the landing. This time, the bout will be held in Auburn Hills, Sander’s home town, so hopefully the judges are able to get the scores right this time.
Last time out, Holm spent an abnormal amount of time bouncing around before the fight. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a fighter bounce as much as she did. It looked for the most part like she was wearing herself out with all the needless bouncing before the fight. I can understand warming up, but she looked like she was overdoing it a bit with the constant up and down bouncing. She also paced around a lot, with a strange look on her face, reminding me a lot of a female version of Oliver McCall. The first round was a huge disappointment, because I had thought that with the way that Holm was looking so anxious, she would attack like a mad dog.
Instead, she ran around the ring avoiding Sanders for almost the entire round. She did attack a couple of times but looked terrible in missing with her wild windmill shots. Sanders was the only one that landed in the round, hitting Holm with some clean shots to the head as she came charging in. The pattern repeated itself in rounds two and three, with Holm bouncing like mad, running around the ring seemingly with no real purpose and then charging forward with her head down throwing wild punches that generally missed by a mile.
It was terrible to watch, reminding me of watching a 10 year-old former classmate of mine putting on the gloves for the first time and trying to fight. The madness of it all, however, was that the crowd cheered like crazy every time that Holm would come forward throwing punches, even though she looked terrible and was missing virtually everything she was throwing. Sanders, the daughter of former NFL player Charlie Sanders, landed the only real blows in the rounds. This would continue in rounds four through six. Holm did land a few shots in the 6th, but it was with her head down and her eyes closed.
Sanders, however, landed the more telling shots in the round, but with the way that the crowd was cheering for Holm, I had grave doubts that the judges would score the round for Sanders. In rounds seven though ten, Sanders continued her domination of Holm, landing well with some good right hands to the head of Holm. For her part, Holm continued her needless bouncing, missing often and charging forward in a running style. This left her wide open for Sanders’ shots, who found it easy to hit Holm as she came surging forward.