Menzer Defeats Salles – Latest Boxing News

By Boxing News - 11/25/2008 - Comments

Image: Menzer Defeats Salles - Boxing News 24 Boxing NewsBy Erik Schmidt: WIBF Women’s International Boxing Federation and WBC featherweight champion Ina Menzer (22-0, 9 KOs) defeated Brazilian Adriana Salles (11-4-1, 5 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Stadthalle, Rostock, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

For Menzer, 28, it was her 12th successful title defense for her WIBF title and her 2nd defense of her WBC crown. After struggling with the bigger 5’7” Salles in the early rounds, Menzer began unloading with big right hand shots starting in the 6th round, staggering Salles at the bell with a huge right hand followed by a jab.

Menzer would again stagger Salles with a right hand in the 7th and cruise the rest of the way to an easy victory, winning by the scores of 98-92, 100-90 and 99-91.

The first round proved to be very close, as Salles, 38, landed hard combinations and pressured the shorter 5’6” Menzer constantly in the round, backing her up with power shots. Menzer, a slow starter, mainly jabbed and looked for openings. In the second round, Salles held and hit early in the round nailing Menzer with two hard right hands while holding on with her left.

Salles would follow with three big left hooks to the head of Menzer. However, in the second half of the round, Menzer came on, landing powerful combinations in the waning seconds of the round to steal the round. In the 3rd, Salles continued to give Menzer a lot of problems, staying busy and landing a lot of hard shots to the head.

Menzer, a great offensive fighter, proved to be lacking in the area of her defense. Menzer came back well in the 4th round, landing hard right hands and stinging jabs. However, Salles continued giving her a lot of problems, pounding Menzer with combinations from long range and taking advantage over her longer arms.

Salles did well in the 5th, staying busy and nailing Menzer with hard uppercuts to the head and hooks to the body. Menzer looked very vulnerable when being backed up and proved to be ineffective when fighting going backwards. Salles was doing well in the 6th round until being staggered at the bell by a hard right hand from Menzer.

It appeared that Salles lost her concentration in the last 10 second and when the bell sounded, she seemed to let off, allowing Menzer to stagger her with a right hand-left jab combination. In the 7th round, Menzer went right hand crazy, going back to the well for what worked for her in the previous round but going way over board with it.

Nevertheless, despite being very predictable, Menzer landed often in the round with right hand shots and staggered Salles early on with another big right. Menzer’s left cheek was beginning to show signs of swelling in the round after eating a couple of big desperate right hands from Salles.

In the 8th round, Salles began to look frustrated, seemingly unable to stop Menzer’s big right hand shots that kept coming. The round, however, was very close mostly due to Menzer’s nonexistent defense which allowed Salles to land pretty much everything she threw in the round.

In the 9th and 10th, Menzer dominated the action with her hard right hand shots which made it tough on Salles, who by this time was looking both tired and badly frustrated, as if she knew she was way behind in the fight and couldn’t do anything about it.