By Nate Anderson: 2008 Olympic light heavyweight Bronze Medalist Tony Jeffries (3-0, 3 KO’s) scored his third consecutive knockout since turning pro in February with a 1st round knockout against Ilya Shakuro (2-2, 1 KO’s) on Friday night at the Seaburn Centre, in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear.
Jeffries, 24, dropped Shakuro seconds into the fight with a huge left hook to the midsection followed closely by two clubbing right hands to the same sport sending Shakuro down on one knee. He got up and the action continued, but Jeffries attacked him hard clubbing him with big right hands to the head, driving Shakuro, 20, across the ring near the ropes.
Jeffries caught up to him and landed a thudding right hand that staggered Shakuro. Jeffries followed up with another pile driving right hand and then a left-right combination that had Shakuro sliding along the ropes when referee Gary Williams stepped in and halted the fight at 1:36 of the 1st round.
Had Williams not stepped in when he did, Jeffries was poised to finish Shakuro off with another right hand. Jeffries’s performance was a little more crude compared to his first two fights of his pro career. He looked as if he wanted to end the fight too quickly and was abandoning any kind of real strategy as Jeffries went out and essentially bludgeoned Shakuro with huge shots while taking him out.
Shakuro found it easy to land his punches, hitting Jeffries with a lot of jabs and a few combinations. He didn’t have the power to compete with Jeffries, however, and ended up on the canvas after getting hit with some hard body shots from Jeffries.
He’ll need to use more patience as he goes up against better opponents in the future. This wasn’t one of Jeffries’s better performances that I’ve seen of him, and he’ll need to get better if he wants to compete against the top fighters in the light heavyweight division.
While it’s still early in Jeffries’ career, his management needs to consider putting him in with some better opponents than what he’s been in with. Being spoon fed soft touches like Shakuro isn’t going to help Jeffries any. Indeed, it very likely will hurt him because he can’t be getting anything by being put in with C-level opponents that he can quickly step on and destroy in one or two rounds.
Jeffries isn’t helping himself by going out quickly and trying to mow them down in such a sloppy manner like Friday night. Jeffries was practically tripping over himself as he urgently went after Shakuro as if his life depended on him knocking this poor guy out.
Instead of looking it as a learning project and getting in some rounds by working on some things like his jab, which needs a lot of work by the way, Jeffries essentially hacked him to pieces with big power shots to the head and body. It wasn’t as if Shakuro was the dangerous type of opponent that you didn’t want to keep around for fear that he might be able to stun Jeffries with something big.
It would have been much better for Jeffries if he had used this fight to learn something from. Sooner or later, Jeffries is going to need some rounds and he might be sorry that he mowed these guys down so quickly.
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