By Erik Schmidt: Super middleweight contender Mads Larsen (51-2, 38 KOs) stopped a badly over-matched Roberto Cocco (9-3, 5 KOs) in the 7th round of a scheduled 10-round bout on Saturday night on the undercard of the WBA heavyweight title match between Evander Holyfield vs. Nikolay Valuev at the Hallenstadion, in Zurich, Switzerland. Larsen, 35, ended the hopelessly one-sided mismatch with a big left uppercut that stunned Cocco in the 7th, snapping his head back.
Larsen then followed up with a right hook and then a clubbing left hand that sent Cocco flying into the ropes face first, dangling there helplessly looking at the audience and totally out of it. At the same moment, Cocco’s corner threw in the towel and the fight was promptly stopped by referee Josef Temml at 1:49 of the round.
I’m not sure what Cocco was waiting on in the first round, but he threw next to nothing, only succeeding in landing a pitiful six punches from what I saw in the round. This allowed the southpaw Larsen to easily control the round, jabbing often and landing straight left hands to the head of Cocco. It was hardly impressive, though, due to Larsen’s terrible hand speed. I was shocked at how slow he is, especially for a top ranked fighter.
Cocco continued doing zero in the 2nd round, walking around, taking shots and throwing few punches back at Larsen. Like in the previous round, Larsen continued jabbing and landing left hands. Larsen looked good in the round, except for his poor hand speed, landing some nice uppercuts and short right hooks. His right hand, though, was next to useless, and doing little whether he landed hooks or jabs and totally missing power and snap.
In the 3rd and 4th round, Larsen looked to be tiring somewhat, missing a lot of his punches and making a lot of mistakes, like throwing uppercuts from too far away. Cocco, though, wasn’t about to make him pay for his mistakes and continued to do next to nothing but stand and take punishment. He looked terrible. As in the previous rounds, Larsen looked slow as before, but seemed to be even slower with his punches in the 4th, if that’s possible.
The 5th and 6th rounds were badly one-sided, with Larsen continuing to pound away on Cocco, who by this point looked to be more of a heavy bag than an actual opponent. Larsen started to look confident in the 6th, and landed some hard left hooks to the body. He tried a few with his near useless right hand, but little damage with them. As for Cocco, he landed all of four punches in the 6th and stayed on par with what he was doing in the other rounds.
In the 7th round, Larsen finally finished the business, landing a nice left uppercut as Cocco was leaning forward, practically begging him to land the shot. Larsen then added a glancing right hand, thrown with little power, and then followed it with a left hand that sent a hurt Cocco flying into the ropes face first. The fight was then stopped by referee Josef Temml.
Larsen, ranked #6 in the World Boxing Association (WBA), #13 in the WBC and #15 in the IBF, was making only his sixth appearance since stepping away from boxing for a four year period from 2003 to 2007. Like most of his opponents that Larsen has faced in his comeback, Cocco was pretty soft, not too much of a threat in terms of offensive skills and someone that did little in the bout other than absorb punishment and make Larsen look good.
For me, Larsen only achieved one of those things, as he didn’t look good, at least not if you wanted to compare him to the top talents in the super middleweight division. He took care of Cocco, pounding him without mercy for all seven rounds, but Larsen’s hand speed, or lack thereof, is going to be a problem when he moves up against better competition.
At the same time, his right hand isn’t much of a weapon at all, and he seems to be a one-armed fighter, totally dependent on his left hand to do all the damage. Obviously, he’s going to need much more than that when he steps up against the better fighters in the super middleweight division, ones like Mikkel Kessler, Lucian Bute, Andre Ward, Sakio Bika, Carl Froch and Allan Green, to name just a few.
At this point, I can’t see Larsen beating too many people in the top 15, if any at all. He’s been away for too long, and his hand speed had deteriorated visibly during that time away. I doubt it will come back. He still has excellent boxing skills, better than most of the fighters in the top tier, yet without hand speed, big power and a good right hand, I see a lot of problems for Larsen in the future when and if he ever steps up against better fighters than what’s been served up for him since his comeback.
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