By William Mackay: Undefeated light heavyweight contender Tony Jeffries (4-0, 3 KO’s) was less than impressive in beating journeyman Artem Solomko (10-18, 3 KO’s) by a six round decision last night at the Seaburn Centre, Sunderland. Referee Andrew Wright scored it 60-54 for Jeffries. The 2008 Olympic Bronze Medalist for England, Jeffries seemed to have problems with the inside fighting ability of Solomko and was unable to land his longer power shots with Solomko constantly crowding him.
More than that, Solomko clinched often, thus preventing Jeffries from landing his shots. However, even without the clinching, Jeffries just seemed ill suited to landing his big shots at close range and had equally hard times hitting Solomko from the outside. This has to be a big downer for Jeffries, because before this fight there was talk of him being a future world champion.
But the way that Jeffries looked last night, he doesn’t appear have the skills to make it to the upper level from what I saw of him. He actually struggled against the 10-18 journeyman and didn’t look good at all in the fight. For those fans who were accustomed to seeing Jeffries steamroll over his opponents since turning pro, Jeffries was getting hit a lot in the first round by the 29-year-old Solomko.
In fact, Solomko actually made it a very close round by keeping in Jeffries’s face and tagging him with some good combinations. The one problem that Solomko had is that he had no power to speak of and because of that he couldn’t make the fight as closer.
In rounds one through three, Jeffries came forward trying to land his big power shots. Solomko, however, made him miss most of the time and did a great job of crowding Jeffries to prevent him from getting much leverage on his shots. In the meantime, Solomko was very accurate with his combinations, landing to the head of Jeffries. The rounds were close because Jeffries wasn’t landing enough of his shots to pull away from Solomko.
When Jeffries would land his biggest shots, they had no effect on Solomko, who would immediately fire back with his own shots. The 2nd round was close until the last seconds of the round when Jeffries landed a triple right hook to the head of Solomko. In rounds four through six, Jeffries’s punch output dropped off, as Solomko stayed close to him, clinching him often and preventing Jeffries from getting his big shots off.
At the same time, Jeffries looked to be tiring out and really dragging. In the 5th, Jeffries connected with a good left hook that sent Solomko flying backwards a couple of steps. However, Jeffries was unable to follow up with anything significant to add to it and Solomko continued with his smothering and clinching tactics. In the 6th and final round, it was Solomko who got the better of a tired and confused looking Jeffries, out-punching him and preventing him from getting his shots off.
All in all, Jeffries looked like he wasn’t ready for this kind of opponent. He needs a lot of work and should continue to fight opponents similar to this, but perhaps with less skills so he can adapt better.