By Erik Schmidt: Middleweight contender Sebastian Sylvester (31-3, 15 KO’s) continued with his successful comeback with a 12 round unanimous decision over American contender Lajuan Simon (21-2-2, 12 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Max Schmeling Halle, in Berlin, Germany. Sylvester, 28, won the fight by the judges’ scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 117-111.
The later score seemed way out of line with which the closeness of this fight, because Simon appeared to have lost the fight by only round on my scorecards, mainly because Sylvester tired out in the last four rounds and couldn’t match the high work rate from the American.
In the first two rounds, Sylvester, ranked number #5 in the IBF, #6 in the World Boxing Organization, #7 in the WBO and #13 in the WBC, methodically jabbed and landed right hands to the head of Simon. Sylvester was like a machine at this point in the fight, using the same motions over and over again successfully.
Simon wasn’t making adjustments to what Sylvester was doing, so the German fighter kept doing what he was having success with. Simon tried matching Sylvester’s jabs, but he wasn’t able to throw nearly as many or with the same kind of power that Sylvester was putting into them.
Sylvester continued to give Simon problems in the 3rd, hitting him with a lot of jabs and right hands. Simon was able to make it close by firing back some hard right hands late in the round but it wasn’t enough to steal the round. Simon finally broken out of his rut in the 5th round when he landed a high number of jabs.
It still was far from what he should have been doing if he wanted to ensure that he was winning the rounds, but it at least was a good start. Simon fought well in the 6th, landing his jab with great effectiveness through the first two minutes of the round.
However, Simon backed off in the last minute of the round and let Sylvester come on and steal it by landing three good right hands and a couple jabs. Simon landed more shots in the 7th, but Sylvester landed the harder punches of two by far. This was probably enough to give him the round, because Simon was still throwing almost exclusively jabs and no real power punches to speak of.
However, this marks the point where Simon seemed to take control over the fight, as Sylvester began to look tired, and was unable to match Simon’s work rate for the remainder of the fight. In the 8th and 9th rounds, Simon kept up a steady downpour of jabs in the face of Sylvester.
In the 10th, Sylvester was getting dominated until the last 30 seconds of the round when he came on and landed some hard right hands to get the attention of the judges. I still thought he lose the round, but the judges being human were probably impressed with his flurry at the end.
That was essentially it for Sylvester, however, because he was unable to keep up with the attacks from Simon and appeared to lose both the 11th and 12th rounds as Simon took the fight to him. In the end, I still saw Sylvester winning the fight, but not by the lopsided score of 117-111 that one judge scored it or 116-112 that one of the other judges had it.
Preskar and Predyura fight to an Eight-round Draw
Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Mario Preskar (16-0-3, 10 KO’s) fought to an eight-round draw against Maksym Pedyura (13-1-1, 11 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Sports Palace, in Lviv, Ukraine. Preskar, 6‘1“, was dropped twice in the 8th round by the much taller 6’4” Pedyura, and seconds after the fight ended, Preskar, 25, lost consciousness and needed to be taken out of the ring on a stretcher.
The draw seemed way out of place, because Pedyura, 31, had thoroughly dominated the entire fight with huge size, winning every round except for the 2nd in my view. Preskar had problems dealing with the huge size of Pedyura and was mauled by him on the inside where Pedyura blasted away at him with big hooks.
Pedyura wasn’t concerned with trying to use his reach against Preskar, and instead was quite comfortable with hammering him at close range and roughing him up.
In the 1st round, Pedyura stalked Preskar around the ring hitting him with big right hands and left hooks and working him over against the ropes with his bigger size. In the 2nd round, Preskar was able to get out of the way of enough of Pedyura’s big shots to edge the round.
However, it was very close and could have easily been scored in Pedyura’s favor. In 3rd round, Pedyura landed a huge number of shots to the head of Preskar, controlling the round quite easily. Preskar only landed a few shots and didn’t attempt to throw many punches in the round.
At this point, Preskar was behind in the fight. In the fourth and fifth rounds, Pedyura continued to push forward and punish the smaller Preskar with punches, and out-landing him by a wide margin. There was no way that either of these rounds could have been scored for Preskar because he was the one absorbing blows and not punching.
In the 6th and 7th rounds, Pedyura continued to hammer Preskar at will, hitting him with big shots on the inside and smothering Preskar’s power. Neither of these rounds could have gone to Preskar, because he was taking some big shots and getting hit all the time.
In the 8th round, both fighters stood toe to toe firing off big shots at each other for a brief period of time until Preskar got hit with a big right hand and went down. Pedyura added a right hand to the head after Preskar was already on the canvas, which caused Preskar to attempt to hit him while lying down.
After Preskar got up, Pedyura rushed him and hit him with a storm of punches that sent Preskar down for the second time in the round near the ropes. The two stood toe to toe trading shots until the final bell. After the fight ended, Preskar went back to his corner and after sitting down on his stool, he collapsed suddenly and had to be taken out of the ring on a stretcher.