By Jim Dower: British light heavyweight champion Dean Francis (30-3-1, 24 KOs) fought to an eight-round draw last night against Ugandan Joey Vegas (11-4-1, 4 KOs) last night at the Oasis Leisure Centre, in Swindon, Wiltshire. Referee Grant Wallis scored it 78-78. It was alarming that a fighter like Vegas, 27, who came into the fight having lost four out of his last six fights including a draw, was able to fight Francis to a virtual standstill.
Francis looked slow and unable to pull the trigger in many of the rounds, clinching often to try and slow down the faster and more powerful Vegas. I personally had Vegas winning the fight five rounds to three, but I was comfortable with the fighting being scored a draw.
Francis looked shot as a fighter, and I’d hate to see him in with a young, fast and skilled fighter like Nathan Cleverly, who I see beating him easily when and if the two fighters ever do meet in the ring.
Francis appeared to take the first round, pawing with a slow jab and retreating across the ring at the faintest hint of an attack from Vegas. It was an ugly round because Francis neither showed any offensive ability, looking as if his reflexes have deteriorated in recent years, yet running each time that Vegas would attempt to land a shot.
In the 2nd round, Francis followed Vegas around the ring in the first minute, holding his lead hand low and throwing weak jabs at Vegas. Francis looked terribly slow with his hands, and showed zero power. Vegas awoke in the 2nd minute of the round, tagging Francis with a hard left-right combination to the head. For the remainder of the round, Vegas chased Francis around the ring bombarding him with hard right hands while Francis occasionally fired a slow, poor looking jab.
I couldn’t understand how Francis had fought for 15 years as a pro, yet still didn’t know how to throw a decent looking jab. Perhaps if he had, he’d have been able to control the round and win the fight. Instead, he threw limp looking jabs and was countered by monstrous right hands from Vegas again and again in the round.
Vegas continued landing hard combinations in the 3rd round, chasing after Francis and blasting him with big shots. Francis often clinched, trying to stop Vegas from hitting him. It looked bad and I wondered why the referee wasn’t penalizing Francis for his constant holding, because it looked as if he was trying to slow Vegas down and stall out the fight with non action. Francis attacked Vegas at one point in the round, but instead of throwing some power shots, he hit him with four punches that I would describe as taps.
I couldn’t see why he even wasted his effort throwing these punches, because it did nothing and couldn’t have scored any points. In the meantime, Vegas was bouncing around and looking very confident, pummeling the blocky looking Francis at every chance he could get.
At this point, if someone were to ask me which of these two fighters were a champion, I’d have to say without thinking Vegas, because Francis looked little better than a C-class fighter at this point in the fight.
Vegas continued to dominate the fight in the 4th, landing big shots whenever he could get close enough to Francis without being clinched. There were a lot of missed shots from Francis during the round, and it looked as if his timing was way off for some reason.
Francis came back a little in the 5th, doing most of the work with short left hooks and jabs to the head of Vegas. For his part, Vegas looked as if he was taking a breather, because he did next to nothing in the round.
There was little action in the 6th round, with both fighters just standing and looking at each other, poising a lot. Surprisingly, the crowd didn’t boo, although they should because both fighters looked to be just stalling, trying to conserve energy by not letting their hands go. Francis finally started throwing some shots, landing some slow and weak looking right hands. Vegas fired back occasionally with some power shots. I had Francis landing more punches in the round but given that they were so weak and slow looking, I gave the round to Vegas.
Both fighters did next to nothing for the first minute and half of the 7th, standing and staring at each other like a couple of statues. The fight was now painful to watch, and finally Vegas began landing some right hands to get the action going, Francis fired back but had no power on his shots at usual. Another round for Vegas.
In the 8th, Vegas spent most of the round chasing Francis around the ring, trying to land punches against a moving target. I was hoping Francis would stop long enough to make a fight of it, but he continued to move a lot, miss a lot and give away a winnable fight.