By Scott Gilfoid: Dillian Whyte (19-1, 15 KOs) defeated Ian Lewison (12-3-1, 8 KOs) by a 10 round stoppage on Friday night to capture the vacant British heavyweight title at the Hydro in Glascow, Scotland. The fight was halted at the 10th round by Lewison’s corner. It appeared that he had a nose problem that caused the fight to be halted.
In the 10th, Lewison, 34, turned his back to Whyte and started blowing his nose. Whyte attempted to hit him with a big right hand, but missed narrowly. From that point on, Lewison spent most of the time in a defensive posture and didn’t throw many shots. It didn’t take a genius to guess that the fight would be halted after the 10th round, and sure enough that’s what happened.
Lewison started off the fight well in nailing Whyte with huge shots in the 1st round. Whyte didn’t have the two-fisted game to stand and trade with Lewison, so he was forced to retreat constantly and throw jabs. Lewison looked quite good at that point in the fight.
In rounds two and three, Whyte began to jab a lot and throw right hands. He was able to dominate Lewison with those weapons. Lewison kept walking into shots instead of working his way forward in an intelligent manner by using his jab and head movement. You could see clearly in those rounds why Lewison is a career domestic level fighter rather than a world class guy. He has bad habits in the ring. At the end of the 3rd round, Whyte gave Lewison a shoulder while he was in close. The referee Terry O’Connor didn’t do anything about it.
The 4th and 5th rounds were close enough to give to Lewison, as he was coming forward and nailing Whyte with the bigger shots. Whyte was mostly jabbing and throwing wild right hands that mostly missed. Whyte wasn’t using his left hand for power shots in those rounds, which makes me believe that he still hasn’t come back from his shoulder surgery with this arm.
Whyte completely took over the fight starting in the 6th. He was hitting a very tired looking Lewison at will with shots, and not getting much coming back from him.
By the end of the 7th, Lewison’s right eye was swelling up and he looked finished. He had nothing at all left in the tank. His corner might as well have pulled him out at this point because he wasn’t throwing enough shots back at Whyte to make a fight of it.
In the 9th round, Whyte began to really go after Lewison’s body with hard punches that looked painful. At one point late in the round, Lewison backed up against the ropes and looked like he was quitting. His body language showed that of a defeated fighter who didn’t want to fight any longer. Surprisingly, Lewison made it out of the round without having a white towel thrown in by his corner like we saw with Kell Brook in his recent fight against middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
Whyte’s surgically repaired left shoulder appeared to be troubling him after the 8th round, as he was getting attention to it. It’s unknown if he reinjured it during the fight. Whyte wasn’t using his left hand much other than jabbing and throwing occasional while left hooks that missed by a mile. As little as Whyte used his left in the fight, it’s hard to believe that his left hand used to be his primary weapon for knocking out and dominating his opponents. It’s kind of sad to see Whyte now reduced to using his left mainly for jabbing nowadays.
All in all, it was a decent performance from Whyte. He showed that he could beat a domestic level fighter by using just his right arm. However, unless Whyte is able to regain the full use of his left arm in terms of power punching, I can’t see him going too far in the heavyweight division. He may get a rematch against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in the future, but he isn’t going to beat him unless he gain get the full strength back in his left arm. Whyte’s right hand isn’t good enough for him to beat Joshua right now.