By DJ Spanksta: On Friday night, at the Desoto Civic Center in Southaven, Mississippi, undefeated light middleweight fringe contender Shawn Porter (16-0, 12 KO) defeated the “New” Ray Robinson (11-2, 4 KO) by a 10-round unanimous decision by the scores of 99-89, 97-92, 98-91. Ray Robinson had a couple of good moments in the early rounds. However, in the 6th round Porter knocked Robinson down and took control of the fight from there.

Robinson was able to weather some of the storm coming from Porter by smothering him with a punch and hold technique. His height and reach advantage were critical in using this tactic. In rounds 8 and 9 Porter started backing up and dancing around the ring to get away from Robinson. With the added range, Porter would then throw and land some combinations on Robinson and hurt him again in Round 9. Although Robinson had some successful moments and showed a lot of courage by not quitting after the 6th round, Porter won the fight with his clean effective punches.

Throughout the fight I was listening to how the Showtime cast evaluated the fight. It became apparent to me why these networks (HBO and Showtime) hire real fighters to provide commentary on fights along with their other commentators. These commentators have no clue what is going on in the ring.

At the end of the fight they did not understand why Sean Porter was backing away from Ray Robinson. After seeing the success Porter achieved, one of the announcers said that his “interesting” strategy of backing off from a guy when you just knocked him down worked successfully. The reason Porter initiated that strategy had to do with Robinson smothering Porter by throwing one punch and then holding on to him for dear life. It was impossible for Porter to hit Robinson in the 7th and part of the 8th round because Robinson had the height and arm-length advantage to hold Porter and then start tapping his body while they were holding each other. This tactic of smothering an opponent makes you look like the aggressor, but in reality it just shows that you are hurt and will do anything to tie your guy up. By backing away from Robinson, Porter had the ability to get full range on his punches and score effectively. I was incredibly surprised that Antonio Tarver (who somehow had the fight for Robinson) did not pick this out. The Showtime commentators (especially Tarver) did a bad job on the commentary of this fight for not understanding Porter’s strategy.

In addition to not understanding the fight strategy used by Porter, the Showtime cast also believed this was a close fight that could have went either way. In my opinion, the scores for this fight were not out of bounds either. Just because the commentators did not understand what was going on did not mean the judges didn’t either. The judges understood that Robinson was not the aggressor. He was hurt after the 6th round and was doing anything to hold Porter that he could. Unlike the commentators, I thought this fight was correctly scored with a lopsided unanimous decision for Porter.

I believe one of the reasons Ray had no choice to grab and hold was due to the lack of experience in his corner. Ray’s trainer, Moses Mosley did not have a successful strategy for his fighter in this fight. Moses would just ramble vague instructions rather than tell Ray how to use his height and reach advantage successfully. In addition, his manager, Roger Levitt, who was obnoxiously screaming his name out during Ray’s introduction, is a swindler from London who stole millions of dollars from British investors with an insurance scam in the 80s. Bad company!

As for Robinson, the “New” title fits him perfectly. Although the “New” Ray showed heart in this fight, the “Old” Ray Robinson knew how to punch, move and box. The “New” Ray Robinson just went from a contender to an opponent because he is a contradiction to the greatest fighter that ever laced up gloves.