By Scott Gilfoid: In what may be a case of a hyped fighter being exposed, undefeated light middleweight knockout artist
Tyrone Brunson (19-0-1, 19 KOs) struggled with Antonio Soriano (12-9-2, 9 KOs), with the fight ending up a six-round majority draw on Friday night at the Venue at River Cree, Enoch, in Alberta, Canada. The final judges’ scores were 56-56, 56-56 and 58-56, for Brunson.
However, Brunson, 23, should consider himself very lucky to have been given a draw because it appeared from my perspective that Soriano, 31, won the fight four rounds to two. What makes it really bad, however, is that Soriano had lost five of his last six fights coming into the bout, and based on this, he shouldn’t have been able to compete with a fighter as hyped as Brunson has. However, not only did Soriano appear to most of the rounds, he looked like the much better overall fighter, showing better boxing skills, more aggression, higher work rate and better defense than Brunson.
Going into this fight, Brunson was known for having set a record by knocking out his first 19 opponent all in the 1st round. However, the record was essentially meaningless because of the poor quality opposition that Brunson had largely faced during those 19 fights.
As bad as Soriano’s record was coming into this fight, sadly, he amounted to being a tremendous leap up in competition for Brunson. In watching how badly Brunson struggled against Soriano, it appeared that this was too big a jump up for Brunson; He needed another fighter, someone, perhaps, with a slightly better boxing skills than the mediocre opposition that he’s faced rather than the aggressive Soriano.
Brunson looked decent in the 1st round, throwing big shots with his right hand. Though his power was clearly good, it wasn’t nearly as good in my estimation of other top light middleweights like James Kirkland or Alfredo Angulo. Brunson was merely just someone that good throw hard, but not anything special from what I could see of him. He threw absolutely zero combinations, and instead loaded up with every shot, throwing them one at a time as if he expected his opponent to topple over after one punch.
That may have worked previously against the subpar fighters that he had been dining on up until now, but Soriano was having none of it, and easily took Brunson’s one at a time, badly telegraphed punches. In the second round, Soriano began to take control of the fight, pressing the action and staying on top of Brunson. Soriano landed some good right hands in the round, and Brunson seemed very uncomfortable with getting hit. It may have been a case of him not being used to it because of the crappy fighters he’s been fighting. Whatever the reason was, he looked worried and he also began to start breathing heavy, as if he was already getting tired.
Brunson narrowly won the third round after coming on in the last 30 seconds with some big shots. However, you could see that Soriano was the stronger fighter and was coming on in the fight. I could tell even then, that Brunson, unless he got lucky with a knockout, he was going to lose the fight. Although it didn’t turn out that way, due to the poor scores that were given, Brunson should have lost the fight because Soriano dominated the bout after the third round.
In round four through six, Soriano totally controlled the fight, landing shot after shot against Brunson as he stood with his back against the ropes, looking like an old fighter. Out of breath most of the time, Brunson was badly tired and looked spent. His punches were no longer as powerful as in the early rounds, and he only had his average boxing skills to save him from being taken out. Lucky for him, Soriano didn’t have the power to take him out, because he would have clearly been beaten by a slightly better fighter than Soriano.
All in all, it was a terrible performance by Brunson. Based on this fight, I don’t ever see him amounting to anything in boxing. He hits hard, but not as hard as the other top fighters, and his stamina, defense and overall boxing skills are average at best.
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