By Erik Schmidt: WBC female and WIBF women’s International Boxing Federation featherweight champion Ina Menzer (24-0, 9 KOs) defeated American Francesca Alcanter (18-9-1, 9 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Saturday night at Halle 7, in Bremen, Germany. Menzer, 28, controlled most of the fight with her jab and right hand.
The scores, however, were more than a little off, because the 36-year-old Alcanter appeared to win at least two of the rounds (the 3rd and the 6th) and should have been given credit for her superior work in those rounds.
The fight had very little action to speak of, as neither Menzer nor Alcanter looked remotely interested in exchanging blows throughout much of the fight.
The German crowd, however, were very patient and watched each two-minute round without booing. In fact, the bout was fought with almost no applause from the fans, since they usually only erupt when there’s action going on.
In the opening round, Menzer stalked Alcanter around the ring and mostly stared at her. I counted five jabs from Menzer, two lefts and one right hand. That was the extent of the action in the round. Alcanter threw nothing and just looked cautious.
The 2nd round was more of the same, as Alcanter finally started to jab a little. Menzer landed two left hands and that was it for the round. At this point, it seemed as if the two of them were trying to break a record for the fewest punches thrown in a fight.
Needless to say, the fight was horribly boring at this point. Having seen Menzer fight on a number of occasions, I know that she’s got good power and is capable of throwing a lot of punches and scoring knockouts.
However, for some reason she wasn’t into throwing punches and neither was Alcanter. I was wondering also exactly how Alcanter was given a shot at Menzer’s title, since this was only Alcanter’s second fight in the past three years. It seems like a title challenger should be a little more active than that, at least that’s what I think.
The 3rd round had a grand total of seven punches thrown with Alcanter landing four of them and Menzer accounting for the other three. Although the punch stats were positively anemic in the round, I thought that Alcanter had done enough – as in landing the harder shots – to win the round. However, the judges thought different and scored it for Menzer.
There was some good two way action in the 4th round, with Alcanter landing some nice jabs and one good left hook to the head. Menzer fired back with a few jabs of her one and a huge right hand. There still was only 20 punches thrown in the round but it seemed like a huge number compared to the previous rounds.
Menzer landed a small number of nice right hands in the 5th, landing to the head and body. Alcanter did little other than jab a few times and try to block shots. It wasn’t an interesting round.
In the 7th round, Menzer landed some big right hands and Alcanter fired back with a few hard left hands. Menzer looked good in the round and scored well with her powerful rights down in the final 30 seconds.
In rounds eight and nine, there was almost no action to speak of as Alcanter was just standing and not letting her hands go. Menzer, who I suppose was waiting for Alcanter to initiate the action, landed a couple of right hands in each of the round and a few jabs, but not much else. In the 10th round, knowing that she was in full control of the fight, Menzer ran out the clock by circling the ring and jabbing.
Overall, it was a terribly disappointing fight to watch due to the lack of action. I know that Menzer is better than this, but I just can’t figure out what was wrong with her. I’m also wondering why Alcanter was chosen as an opponent with so few fights in the past three years. It seems as if a more qualified opponent could have been found somewhere who would have given a better fight than Alcanter.