By Jim Dower: Undefeated middleweight prospect Patryk Szymanski (16-0, 9 KOs) stayed unbeaten with an unimpressive 10 round unanimous decision over Wilky Campfort (21-3, 12 KOs) on Saturday night on Premier Boxing Champions at the Santander Arena, in Reading, Pennsylvania. The final judges’ scores were 98-92, 99-91 and 99-91.
The 23-year-old Poland born Szymanski hurt Campfort with a right hand to the head in the 10th round. However, Szymanski then preceded to land a number of low and belt line blows. Referee Benjy Esteves Jr. was attempting to break the fighters late in the round when Szymanski landed a hard right hand on the break. Fortunately for him, the referee didn’t take a point away. However, he did give the badly hurt Campfort time for him to recover.
Szymanski attempted briefly to finish off Campfort, but he wasn’t able to finish him off. Szymanski then spent the remaining seconds of the round running and showing boat while the crowd booed him loudly.
Szymanski looked good in the third two rounds with his power shots against a passive Campfort. Szymanski didn’t show a lot of wrinkles in his offense early on, as he threw a lot of jabs and left-right combinations. There wasn’t much complexity to his game, because there didn’t need to be. Campfort wasn’t really doing much, as he looked like he was still shell-shocked from his fourth round knockout loss to Jermall Charlo last November.
Campfort finally started to let his hands go in the 3rd round. He started to walk Szymanski down and tag him with hard right hands to the head.
In the 4th round, Szymanski was already looking gassed out from the pace of the fight. Campfort was walking Szymanski down and hitting him hard with right hands. Late in the rounds, Campfort hurt Szymanski with a right hand to the head. Campfort unloaded with a small flurry of shots that had Szymanski running and holding.
Campfort continued to fight well in the 5th. Szymanski was trying to evade Campfort by moving around the ring, but it was no use. He was able to cut off the ring and force him to exchange.
In round 6, Campfort landed some nice right hands to the head and lefts to the body that put Szymanski in the fleeing mode.
Szymanski changed his tactics in round 7 to become more mobile. He didn’t want to mix it up with Campfort because he was getting the worst of it. The movement that Szymanski used worked well enough for him to keep out of range of Campfort’s shots for the remainder of the fight.
Overall, Szymanski looks like a decent prospect, but he needs to work on his stamina and his punching power. He doesn’t hit hard enough to compete against the top middleweights, and he doesn’t handle pressure very well.
If Szymanski had been inside the ring with a talented middleweight tonight, he would have been beaten and likely knocked out. If he’s going to do something with his career, then he’ll need to fix the holes his game. Szymanski wasn’t able to fight in a stationary manner against Campfort because he was getting the better of him when the two of them were fighting stationary.
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Other boxing action on the card, former IBF 147lb champion Kermit Contron (37-5-2, 28 KOs) defeated an over-matched Carlos Garcia (10-16-1, 8 KOs) in winning an eight round decision in the 154lb division.
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Super featherweight Frank DeAlba (19-2-2, 8 KOs) defeated journeyman Jonathan Perez (35-15, 28 KOs) by a 2nd round knockout.