By Chris Williams: Former two-time WBO heavyweight champion Herbie Hide (43-4-41 KOs) won an easy 12-round unanimous decision over Ehinomen Ehikhamenor (12-3, 7 KOs) last night at the Pabellon Lasearrem Baracaldo, in Pais Vasco, to retain his WBC International cruiserweight title. Hide, 36, dropped Ehikhamenor with a big right hand in the 4th round, but was unable to finish him off as the round ticked to an end shortly after Ehikhamenor was administered a standing eight count by Adrio Zannoni. Hide tired out badly after at the 5th round, and seemed to be content with mostly jabbing and mixing in an occasional big right hand for the rest of the way. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 118-109 and 117-110.
Hide now fights and lives out of Hamburg, Germany, and his once blazing fast hand speed is now all but gone, leaving only his still impressive power in his right hand. His punches, though, are now very predictable as he telegraphs them badly by constantly measuring his opponents with his left hand. This was something he did constantly against Ehikhamenor on Friday night, who mostly had an easy time making Hide miss many of his shots. Unfortunately for Ehikhamenor he had no offense of his own to speak of, reminding me a lot of both Monte Barrett and Chris Byrd. I mean that somewhat as a compliment, for Ehikhamenor has excellent defensive skills, moving his head and shoulders constantly, showing angles and moving well with his feet.
Former two-time WBO heavyweight champion Herbie Hide (40-4, 39 KOs) destroyed an unwilling Romanian Mircea Telecan (5-17-2, 3 KOs) in the 1st round on Friday night at the Hansehalle, Luebeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Hide, 36, now fighting as a cruiserweight, dropped Telecan twice in the first round before the referee Arno Pokrandt stopped the horrible mismatch at 1:16 of the first round. The odd thing was, Telecan fell down twice in the first minute of the fight without ever really being hit. On the first occasion, As Hide threw a punch that missed by a mile, Telecan backed up and fell down as if he was hit.