By Scott Gilfoid: WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (24-0, 2 KOs) retained his WBO 160lb title in beating #10 WBO fringe contender Artur Akavov (16-2, 7 KOs) by a controversial 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Lagoon Leisure Centre, in Paisley, Scotland.
The judges scored the fight 116-113, 116-112 and 115-113 for Saunders. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 6-6 with neither guy winning. I actually had Akavov winning the fight 8 rounds to 4, but I gave Saunders two mercy rounds where the rounds were slightly close but not close enough for him to win them outright.
There was NO WAY on earth that Saunders did enough to win the fight though. How could he? Saunders spent almost the entire fight resting against the ropes like an out of shape fighter. Saunders did not have the energy to go after Akavov except in a few late rounds of the fight.
Saunders, 27, looked dreadful in the entire fight in mostly just running around trying not to get hit by the 31-year-old Russian fighter. The scoring was dreadful, but I expected that. I figured that Akavov needed a knockout to win this fight no matter how good he was, and I was right. All the scores were bad, but especially the 116-112. I don’t know how you could watch the Saunders vs. Akavov fight and come up with a 116-112 score unless you had your eyes closed. Saunders did not do nearly enough to win by that margin. Heck, Saunders didn’t do well enough to win, period in my view.
“I stuck the place out with this performance,” Saunders after the fight.
Well, Saunders definitely did fight well. He spent much of the fight on the ropes trying to make Akavov miss. I don’t know why Saunders didn’t take the fight to Akavov, because it’s not as if he had to worry about his punching power.
The 1st round was an even one where neither guy did enough to win it. I gave it to Saunders just based on him being the home fighter. He didn’t do nearly enough to win it, but I thought that he would get that round by the judges simply because it was halfway close. I normally would have given the round to Akavov, but I didn’t see the judges giving it to him.
Akavov clearly outworked a lazy looking Saunders in round 2 through 6. That’s five rounds in a row that I felt that Akavov deserved due to him being the MUCH busier fighter of the two. You could tell that Akavov was the better fighter in those rounds, because he was the one pushing the pace, and he was making a loud grunting sound each time he would land a shot. The impact of Akavov’d punches to the head and body of Saunders was unmistakable. You couldn’t miss it unless you couldn’t hear or had earphones on. Akavov badly outworked Saunders for five rounds.
In rounds 7 through 10, Saunders came back to outwork Akavov by a slight margin in each of those rounds. They were still close rounds that could have gone for Akavov, but the crowd was making a loud fuss for every punch that Saunders threw in that round. I noticed that Saunders missed quite a few punches in those four rounds, and yet the crowd cheered loudly as if he were landing. My guess is the judges were impressed with the cheering and failed to notice that Saunders’ punches were missing and being picked off on the gloves of Akavov.
The 10th round was pretty much the last hoorah for Saunders, as he emptied out his gas tank completely in the 10th. Saunders had absolutely nothing left at the end of the round. I knew that Saunders was finished at the end of the 10th by the way he wearily walked back to his corner. He moved as he was carrying a full load of groceries on his back.
Saunders plopped down onto his ring stool like a man who walked across a 50-mile desert. He had nothing left.
In 11th and 12, Akavov completely took over the fight in outworking a very tired looking Saunders, who perched himself against the ropes and could do no more than try and make Akavov miss. I was scoring the punches in both the 11th and 12th rounds, and I had nothing but Akavov’s name written down over and over again for punches landed. I had to look closely for the few instances that the tired looking Saunders landed in both of those rounds. Saunders couldn’t land. He was too tired.
I have to say that the year that Saunders took off from boxing didn’t help his boxing skill at all. Saunders did not look like a sharp fighter tonight. Akavov is a fringe contender, and someone that Saunders should have been able to beat without any problems whatsoever.
The fact that Saunders had to struggle to win a controversial decision suggests that he does not belong in the same ring with the likes of middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin or WBO junior middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez. I hate to say it, but Saunders doesn’t even belong in the same ring with the likes of Chris Eubank Jr., Danny Jacobs, Avtandil Khurtsidze, David Lemieux or Ryota Murata. I think all of those guys would have whipped Saunders tonight.
If I’m Saunders, I’d be looking to cash out against Golovkin or Canelo in his next fight, because if he has to face his #1 challenger Khurtsidze, I see him losing to that guy. The good news is that Golovkin and Canelo are both eager to fight Saunders in order to take his WBO strap from him. They obviously spot weakness in Saunders, and are ready to beat him to get an easy strap. Saunders’ management need to make either of those fights happen next, because if he faces Khurtsidze next, he’s going to lose badly. I think Khurtsidze would take the judges out of the picture by hammering Saunders into the canvas. It wouldn’t matter if we had dreadful scoring like we saw tonight. The scores from the judges wouldn’t come into play if Khurtsidze is the opponent for Saunders in my opinion.