By Dan Ambrose: International Boxing Organization (IBO) cruiserweight champion Danny Green (31-4, 27 KO’s) got badly exposed on Wednesday night by 42-year-old former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (29-6, 20 KO’s) in a 9th round stoppage loss for the 38-year-old Green in front of his own home crowd at the Entertainment Centre, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The southpaw Tarver was simply too powerful, too quick and too skilled for the hard hitting Green and the fight was never really competitive. Green, who built up an impressive record against mostly fodder opponents, was dropped in the 2nd round by a nice left hand uppercut from Tarver. Green was never the same after that knockdown, as he fought cautiously much of the time treating Tarver with the utmost care.

It was simply a case of Tarver having too much power and speed for Green. Tarver had recently fought at heavyweight and done an admirable job in defeating the hard hitting Nagy Aguilera last October in a one-sided 10 round decision. So moving down in weight to take on a smaller, weaker Green was a lot easier for Tarver than taking on a heavyweight the size of Aguilera.

Tarver dominated after the 2nd round, stalking Green and nailing him with 1-2 combinations. Green looked out of sorts with Tarver’s southpaw stance and skills. No doubt, Green’s nasty habit of taking on over-matched weak opponents really hurt him in this fight because he was finally taking on someone with skills instead of a handpicked opponent without much ability or too old to be a threat, as was the case with 41-year-old Roy Jones Jr.

In the 4th round, Tarver roughed the shorter Green up, beating him at his own game and stunning the Australian crowd into silence. It was sad and shocking to see Green getting handled so easily by Tarver. Green was tagged with a hard left hand shortly before the end of the round that snapped Green’s head back.

In the 5th and 6th round, Green continued to have problems with Tarver’s jabs and left hands. He wasn’t willing to try and walk though the shots, because when he would, Tarver would greet him with an uppercut or a straight left that would stop Green in his tracks and make him reconsider his options. Green looked like was waiting for openings to land counter punches but because of Tarver’s length, he wasn’t able to get in close enough to throw the shots. Tarver was literally spearing him from the outside, and when Tarver would land shots in close, Green was too busy taking big punches to fire back.

Green came back strong in the 7th, landing some powerful body shots and some good right hands to the head. Tarver may have been briefly hurt from one of the head shots and the body punches he absorbed seemed to have an affect as well. Green fought a lot better in this round, but he was still taking some hurtful punches as well. It’s wasn’t the one-way traffic that Green has become accustomed to throwing in his matches against weaker opposition.

In the 8th, Green attempted to continue his recent success by starting strong and landing some hard shots. However, Tarver quickly resumed control of the fight by landing some huge 1-2 combinations and straight left hands. Tarver jabbed and threw a lot of shots that connected in this round and Green, a fighter that likes to club his opponent into submission, didn’t have the ability to match Tarver’s work rate.

In other action on the card:

Shane Cameron TKO 12 Dominic Vea
Commonwealth cruiserweight title
Naoufel Ben Rabah KO 3 Isaac Hlatshwayo