By Erik Schmidt: Former WBO heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster (35-5, 30 KOs) can forget about getting another title shot against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko after losing an eight round unanimous decision to 2004 Olympian Gbenga Oloukun (17-1, 10 KOs) tonight at the Gerry Weber Stadium, Halle, in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
The final judges’ scores were 79-76, 77-75 and 77-75. It appears that Brewster’s new German promotional team made a calculated mistake in matching Brewster with too good of an opponent and it ended up costing Brewster. Oloukun, a fighter with good boxing skills but with a weak chin and stamina problems, was able to outbox Brewster over the course of the eight round fight and outwork him.
This was an opponent that Brewster needed to be fighting in a 12-round bout, because it would have allowed Brewster to take advantage of his ability to win fights late due to his power and better stamina. By having the fight limited to only eight rounds, Brewster’s promotional team but him at a severe handicap, because it would give him far fewer rounds to wear down his opponent. In the end, it cost Brewster the fight and will likely knock him out of the top 15.
Oloukun, 26, put together some beautiful combination in the first six rounds of the fight, getting the better of the slower Brewster. Oloukun took Brewster’s big left hooks without too many problems and fired back with combinations that kept the 36-year-old Brewster busy on the defensive side of things.
Oloukun had the better hand speed and was able to hit the slow moving Brewster with fast shots as he would plod forward. Brewster came back in the 3rd and appeared to hurt Oloukun with a nice left hook to the head. However, Brewster tired himself out in going for a knockout.
And in the following rounds, the younger Oloukun took advantage of Brewster’s conditioning to land big combinations to the head and body of Brewster. Physically, Brewster looked young for a 36-year-old fighter, but his work rate was like someone older than that. Brewster never had a great work rate even in his prime, but it appears to have worsened since he came back in 2007 following surgery to repair a detached retina in his left eye.
Like in Oloukun’s fight against Manuel Charr, a fight that Oloukun was stopped in the 7th round, Oloukun started fading badly in the 7th round. Brewster than began to land monstrous right hands and left hooks and worked Oloukun over in the 7th and 8th rounds. However, because of the earlier work that Oloukun had done in rounds one through six, Oloukun ended up winning the decision.
Like I said, Brewster’s management made a mistake in putting him in a short fight like this. At the least, Brewster needs a 10 round bout to fully take advantage of his power and skills. He’s like a train that slowly builds a head of steam but it takes awhile for him to get going.
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Making his first appearance as a light heavyweight, undefeated Karo Murat (20-0, 12 KOs) defeated Sergey Demchenko (13-3, 10 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision. The final judge’s scores were 117-111, 117-111 and 120-108, all for Murat. Demchenko, from Ukraine, was no match for Murat and found himself getting pounded on by Murat and unable to match his big power shots. Murat landed effectively to the body throughout the fight and didn’t appear to have much respect for Demchenko’s weaker shots.