By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten Polish cruiserweight prospect Lukasz Janik (12-0, 6 KOs) took out Canadian Martin Hudon (2-2-1, 2 KOs) in the 4th round on Friday night at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Janik, 23, hurt Hudon with a hard left hand early in the 4th round, and then buried him with a flurry of shots as Hudon stood covering up on the ropes.
Referee Michael Griffin then stepped in and stopped the fight at 0:40 of the 4th. Janik stalked the weak-punching Hudon around the ring in the 1st round, tagging him with combinations to head and body. Hudon fired back with nice body shots, but he wasn’t able to throw back enough punches to keep Janik off of him in the round. Without much coming back, Janik trapped Hudon up against the ropes again and again in the opening round, raking him with punches from head to body.
Hudon began to develop swelling under his left eye by the 2nd round, a product of Janik’s hard right hands he was nailing him with. Hudon gamely tried to fight back in the round, attacking Janik wildly with flailing punches that often hit mostly air. In the first minute of the round, Janik landed a hard combination that staggered Hudon and caused him to fall into the ropes.
Janik came crashing forward, throwing hard shots but was unable to finish Hudon off with anything. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but Janik just didn’t have the power to take him out with a single shot, which is what he was trying to do by loading up with Hudon on the ropes.
In the 3rd round, Janik continued landing hard shots to the body and head of Hudon, backing him up against the ropes repeatedly and hitting him with big shots. The swelling under Hudon’s left eye began to worsen by this time in the right, threatening to close his eye altogether.
Janik spent the better part of the round tagging Hudon with shot after shot at close range. Hudon was now throwing next to nothing and just taking abuse from Janik. Hudon did land one good right hand in the round, catching Janik with a big right as he was coming inside.
Janik seemed to have no respect for the offense of Hudon by this stage in the fight and was coming in looking for a knockout and not thinking in the least about protecting himself from Hudon’s punches. While in close, Janik often stood square to Hudon, making himself an easy target for any return shots.
Fortunately for Janik, Hudon was throwing much his way, but in the future, Janik is going to have to think about changing his style of fighting because he’ll have big problems when he steps it up against better fighters.
In the 4th round, Hudon started fast, landing a couple of jabs a hard left hand. Janik immediately came roaring back like a little bull, hitting Hudon with a powerful left hand that hurt him and then landing a storm of punches while Hudon attempted to cover up on the ropes. The referee stepped in and stopped the fight with Hudon still covering up, putting a stop to the fight at 0:40 of the 4th.
Janik looked okay, but he has a long ways to go before he’s ready for better competition. Right now, he’d probably be taken out by most, if not all, of the top 15 fighters in the cruiserweight division.