Saunders beats Blackwell, wins British 160 lb title in poor performance

By Boxing News - 12/15/2012 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: Commonwealth middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (16-0, 10 KO’s) defeated Nick Blackwell (12-2, 6 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision tonight to capture the vacant British middleweight title at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, London, United Kingdom. The final judges’ scores were 117-112, 116-113, 115-114.

Blackwell may have lost the fight but he was the impressive fighter tonight with his nonstop pressure that he put on Saunders, and he really had Saunders looking gassed and worried for much of the second half of the fight. Saunder was cut above the right eye in the 6th from a hard jab from Blackwell, and things kind of went downhill for Saunders after that because Blackwell was really getting to him with his pressure, and superior conditioning.

Saunders didn’t show much in the way of power. He looked like a light hitting boxer, and not a good one at that. He beat Blackwell but that really wasn’t much of a statement given all the hype that’s out there about Saunders. I can’t see Saunders beating any world fighters because he doesn’t have the power or conditioning to do the job.

After the fight Saunders said he wouldn’t mind fighting Chris Eubank Jr, and he thinks he can beat him. I’m not very high on Eubank Jr. but I see him beating Saunders.

I’m still stunned at how truly awful Saunders looked in this fight. He looked like he was totally stressing out from the pressure Blackwell was putting on him. He had a kind of panicky look to him in the later rounds, as if he wanted the fight to be over.

In the 12th, Blackwell really worked Saunders over body and head shots, and it looked bad for Saunders until the round ended 20 seconds early. I don’t know what Blackwell would have done to Saunders in the last 20 seconds but I sure would have liked to have found out.



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