By Nate Anderson: Former European Boxing Union (EBU) and British lightweight (BBBofC) champion Jonathan Thaxton (34-10, 19 KO’s) continued with his recent struggles in the ring, losing an eight round referee’s decision to Tom Glover (9-5-3) by a 77-76 score on Saturday night at the York Hall, in Bethnal Green, London. Thaxton, 34, came into the fight having lost two out of his last three fights, started off well against Glover but then quickly ran out of gas and began pushing his punches by the 4th round.
Much of the blame for the defeat rests entirely on Thaxton’s shoulders, however, because he spent too much time early in the fight trying to slug it out with Glover and ended up wasting a lot of energy in the process. Additionally, Thaxton had a nasty habit of grabbing Glover in head locks throughout the fight.
Over and over again, Thaxton was warned by referee Ken Curtis about this but Thaxton seemed unable to resist repeating this act. Finally, the referee had no other choice but to take a point away from Thaxton in the 7th. Despite getting penalized, Thaxton would continue to grab Glover in head locks periodically for the remainder of the fight.
It’s kind of a weird move because normally fighters tend to clinch rather than grabbing their opponents in head locks, but to each his own. If it works for Thaxton, so be it. The problem is, it wasn’t working and he needed to back off when the referee told him to stop the first time.
However, even without the lost point, Thaxton was struggling against Glover and getting hit with big right hands from the 4th round on. Using a lot of movement and pure boxing, Thaxton came back to the win the 8th and final round.
If only Thaxton has fought this way in the previous seven rounds, this would have been a much easier fight for him. When Thaxton wasn’t trying to overpower Glover, he looked very good for a 34-year-old fighter. He just needed to understand that he didn’t have the stamina to fight hard using his old slugging style early in the fight. Thaxton fought well in the first two rounds, throwing a lot of punches and getting the better of Glover.
However, by fighting all out at a 100% for the first two rounds, Thaxton looked spent by the 3rd round and looked all of 34. In the 2nd round, Thaxton was cut high on his forehead during the action. Glover landed several big left hands to the head during the round and kept a lot of pressure on Thaxton.
In between rounds, Thaxton looked tired and stressed out. In the 3rd round, Glover began to walk Thaxton down hitting him with big right hands and left hooks to the head. Thaxton tried to use his boxing trickery by switching southpaw to orthodox, but none of his slick bag of tricks had any effect on Glover, who kept on coming and firing away with big shots.
Thaxton came back in the 4th outworking Glover and doing just enough to win the round. However, while Glover looked like he was just coasting and fighting effortlessly, Thaxton was exerting a lot of energy moving around and throwing as lot of punches.
In rounds five through seven, Glover took control over the fight as Thaxton looked spent, his punches having nothing on them at this point. Glover was able to hammer Thaxton with big shots. He still wasn’t quite as active as Thaxton, but his punches were much more powerful than Thaxton’s at this point in the fight. In the 8th, with the fight all but lost, Thaxton came back to win the last round. Unfortunately, Thaxton needed a knockdown to knot up the score and didn’t accomplish much in outworking Glover in the final round.
Although the fight was close at the end, had this been a 12-round fight instead of an eight rounder, my guess is that Thaxton would have lost handily. He needs a lot of work on his stamina because Thaxton has had problems running out of gas now in three round of his last four fights.
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