By Scott Gilfoid: If you were in need of sleep on Saturday night, all you needed was to watch Dmitriy Salita (29-0-1, 16 KOs) defeat Derrick Campos (17-6, 10 KOs) by a dull 12-round unanimous decision and would you would have been fast asleep by the end of the painfully dull fight.
Salita, ranked #3 in the WBA, looked closer to a #330 ranked fighter than a true top contender as he struggled against Campos, 27, perhaps no more than moderately good fighter, at best. The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 117-111 and 115-113, for Salita.
Originally from Ukraine and now living and fighting out of Brooklyn, New York, Salita showed little in the way of power, hand speed or defense against the brawling, constantly bum-rushing Campos during the bout. On paper, Salita should have easily have been able to win this fight, but throughout the fight, he often dipped low, allowing the shorter Campos to hit him with shots.
He also was backed up often to the ropes, where Campos was able to land his wild punches thrown in flurries that enabled him to make many of the rounds much closer than they should normally have been. At times, Salita looked good, especially when he was moving around the ring, jabbing Campos from afar.
However, when Salita would stop, his poor hand speed and bad habits, like dipping down to the level of Campos, would cause him to absorb unnecessary punishment. However, Salita won the first three rounds due to his big advantage in punches landed, but he looked far from a fighter with an inflated 29-0 record like his.
Campos fought well in the 4th round, bum rushing Salita often and hitting him with flurries of punches as Salita would foolishly hang on the ropes trying to cover up. In rounds five though ten, Salita dominated the action, circling often and backing away from Campos when he would come rushing forward madly.
Salita still showed a lack of hand speed during the exchanges, and his power was also less than it should be for a fighter with an impressive record like his. In the 11th, Salita appeared to take the round off, enabling Campos to land a high number of his hard shots as Salita attempted to cover up on the ropes.
It wasn’t pretty, and the action resembled more of a couple of crude amateur fighters rather than professionals during the round. In the 12th round, both Salita and Campos stood toe-to-toe trading bombs, each of them getting hurt slightly while delivering right hands to the head. Salita, like in most of the rounds, got the better of the action, but not by much.
In the end, Salita was too good for Campos, whom he should have destroyed if he were truly as good as his inflated record and number # 3 WBA ranking would have you believe. At this point, I don’t see Salita being nearly good enough to beat top light welterweight title holders like Timothy Bradley, Kendall Holt, and Andreas Kotelnik, each of which would probably make short work of Salita if they were to fight him.
Hopefully before it gets to that, Salita can learn some more and finally fight someone in the top 10. I doubt that he would beat them, but at least he’d learn some more things in the process.