By Dave Lahr: In a sloppy fight that showed little skill from both fighters, undefeated light middleweight prospect Shawn Porter (5-0, 4 KOs) defeated Cory Jones (4-4, 1 KOs) by a four-round decision last night at the Wicomico Civic Center, in Salisbury, Maryland. The final judges’ scores were 40-33, 40-33, 39-35, all for the 21-year-old Porter.
Jones, 31, was knocked down twice in the 1st round, but survived the round and smothered Porter sufficiently the rest of the way to prevent from being knocked out. In winning the fight, Porter showed little power, terrible form and a lack of size (5’7″) that will likely inhibit his future success as he moves up against stiffer competition than he faced on Friday night.
Porter, a 2007 National Golden Gloves middleweight champion, dominated the 1st round, knocking Jones down with a left hand 35 seconds into the fight. Jones got up off the canvas and was under an immediate assault by Porter, getting nailed by big left hands and right hooks to the head.
However, Porter seemed to rob much of his own power by clumsily throwing shots in a wild style, as if his equilibrium was somehow way off for some reason. I can’t recall seeing a more clumsy fighter than Porter, because he looked really bad as if he was fighting with two left feet and with both shoelaces tied together. It was painful to watch to be honest.
A short while later in the round, Porter landed a left hand that put Jones down again. It was more of a case of Jones being off balance than him being hurt by a big shot from Porter, however. After Jones got up, Porter sloppily went after him, missing huge home run punches over and over again and looking nothing short of terrible as the round ended.
In the 2nd round, Porter continued to look really sloppy in his attack, moving in herky-jerky way and throwing shots from weird, off balance angles. Despite his balance issues, Porter appeared to stagger Jones with a right hand in the opening seconds of the round.
Again, I wasn’t sure if Jones was actually hurt or just off balance himself because he looked almost as sloppy as Porter in fighting and didn’t appear ready when he get tagged. Jones wasn’t throwing a whole lot of punches in the round, but the punches he did throw he connected well.
Porter, who apparently had an extensive amateur career of 285 fights, wasn’t skilled enough to get out of the way of Jones’ shots. Near the end of the round, Porter went through the motions of ducking a couple of harmless shots from Jones, but almost immediately Porter was tagged with a nice left hand as soon as he straightened up. So much for defense.
The fight continued looking painful to watch in the 3rd, with both fighters draping themselves on each other and throwing shots back and forth at close range. Porter seemed way too urgent to land something big, which may have had a factor in him looking so unskilled and sloppy. He missed a ton of shots in the round, even though Jones was right in front of him.
In the 4th, Jones was docked a point for holding by the referee. There continued to be a lot of holding from him, however. Porter, as usual, continued looking sloppy and badly off balance as he threw wild shots, missing more often than not. He did enough in the round to win it, along with the fight, but it was hard to watch.