By Erik Schmidt: EBU-EU (European Union) heavyweight champion Francesco Pianeta (18-0-1, 11 KOs) and Polish heavyweight Albert Sosnowski (44-2-1, 27 KOs) fought to a controversial 12-round draw on Saturday night at the Burg-Waechter Castello, in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 114-114, 116-114 for Pianeta and 113-115 for Sosnowski.
I personally had Sosnowski winning the fight by a 9 rounds to 3 margin. However, because Pianeta, 24, is the champion and was fighting in front of a home crowd in Germany, it would have taken something special from Sosnowski in order to get the win.
Sosnowski appeared to win all of the first five rounds of the fight, badly outworking the slow, 6’5″ Pianeta. There was nothing close about any of these rounds as Pianeta simply wasn’t letting his hands go. Sosnowski had a big part to do in that, because he was throwing a lot of punches and not letting up for long enough for Pianeta to get a chance to throw.
It seems that Pianeta isn’t the type of fighter that is comfortable opening up with his offense when his opponent is throwing punches, which is why he just stood around for the first five rounds with both of his gloves glued to the side of his head.
In the 6th round, Sosnowski began to tire out some, throwing less punches and putting less power on his shots. He was still badly outworking Pianeta by a wide margin, but Pianeta was throwing the harder shots. It was an anemic round for Pianeta offensively, landing less than 10 punches. However, because this was the most he had landed in any round up to this point, the German audience was screaming loudly after every punch he threw even the many that he missed. The judges being human obviously scored it for Pianeta. I had Sosnowski easily winning the round.
Sosnowski controlled the 7th round, pounding Pianeta unceasingly with short combinations to the head and body. Pianeta landed a handful of shots at the end of the round, but not nearly enough to win the round.
In the 8th round, Pianeta finally had a halfway decent round, throwing a sustained burst of combinations near the end of the round. Most of the shots missed, but enough landed to get the attention of the judges. Once again, Sosnowski outlanded Pianeta by a wide margin. I had Sosnowski winning the round, but the crowd was screaming loudly for Pianeta, so that probably meant the judges scored it for Pianeta.
In rounds nine through eleven, Sosnowski worked the slow lumbering Pianeta over with combinations, hitting him over and over again without stop. Pianeta would fire back only rarely, often missing with wild shots. He landed with a few good punches every now and then, but not enough to cause any problems for Sosnowski.
In the 12th, Sosnowski started off well, throwing a lot of punches in the 1st minute of the round. However, after that he chose to clinch a lot of try to ride out the round with what should have been a commanding lead. As it turns out, it wasn’t and Pianeta ended up getting a draw and being allowed to hold onto his obscure title.
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