number1contender.net

Showtime Championship Boxing Recap

April 12, 2008

St. Pete Times Forum-Tampa, Florida

IBF/IBO Light Heavyweight 12-Round Championship Unification Match:

Antonio Tarver (26-4, 19 KO's, 173.75 pounds) (IBO Champion) vs. Clinton Woods (41-3-1, 24 KO's, 175 pounds) (IBF Champion)

Tarver won his title when it was vacant via 12-round majority decision over Elvir Muriqi on June 9, 2007 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut. The previous champion was Bernard Hopkins, who relinquished the title to face Winky Wright in a big money match. This is Tarver's second defense of the title.

Woods won his title when it was vacant via technical knockout at 2:59 of round 5 over Rico Hoye on March 4, 2005 at the Magne Centre in Rotherham, England. The previous champion was Johnson, who vacated the title to face Tarver for The Ring Championship at 175 pounds. Woods is making his fifth defense of this title.

Tarver had a stellar amateur career that was capped off by winning a bronze medal for the United States in boxing at 178 pounds at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.

The Tampa, Florida resident has recently begun referring to himself as a boxer and an actor, after playing the villain in "Rocky Balboa" (Rocky VI). The change in title has gone along with a dramatic fall off in the ring. Tarver was awful in losing The Ring Championship at 175 pounds to Hopkins via blowout 12-round unanimous decision on June 10, 2006 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The loss came after Tarver had finished his filming for Rocky Balboa and the boxer blamed his poor performance on having to lose the extra cosmetic muscle he put on for the movie, and that his food was poisoned the night before the match by a Hopkins supporter. Post match blood tests revealed no traces of poison in Tarver's system, it merely indicated he was making up excuses for being terrible in the ring that night. However, Tarver has embarrassingly stuck to his story of being poisoned, which has created a large public backlash against him.

Tarver's showings against his next opponent Muriqi was poor, as well. The Florida resident was badly gassed by the end of the match and only working in spurts during his best moments. In round 5, Tarver threw an intentional looking head butt, that opened up Muriqi badly and swung the momentum of the match decidedly in his favor. Muriqi's vision was badly impaired from the cut and swelling the head butt caused to the point the match was in jeopardy of being stopped. On several unofficial scorecards, Muriqi never won another round after being busted open. Despite the fact Muriqi was having severe vision problems and had never been past 8 rounds before in his career, Tarver was never able to come close to finishing the diminished boxer, who was perceived to be not at his level in the remaining rounds. Tarver became too gassed, and was only punching in brief spurts. He appeared out of shape for the match and unprepared to go a hard 12-rounds.

The American's last match was similarly unimpressive. Tarver defeated Danny Santiago via technical knockout at 2:53 of round 4 on December 1, 2007 at Foxwoods Casino. Santiago was part of season 3 of "The Contender". However, Santiago was not good enough to earn a match in the show's tournament. Tarver held a 5" height advantage over the out classed Santiago and still managed to make the match ugly. The first 2.5 rounds were a hugging contest, with Tarver doing little punching and the crowd booing. Tarver worked hard for the final minute of round 3 and nearly ended the match with the 1 minute of effort he had given in the match. Scoring 2 knockdowns in round 4, Tarver forced the referee to stop the contest. After the match Tarver boasted of the great defense and boxing skills he showed in the match. Those comments had many people watching the match confused, because Tarver was never threatened by any punches from Santiago and it appeared that Tarver could have ended the match in round 1 had he felt like it.

Tarver is The Ring's number 3 contender at 175 pounds.

Woods has boxed 43 of his 45 professional matched in Great Britain. Woods' first trip abroad was to Warsaw, Poland on December 10, 1999 to defeat American Terry Ford, who was 17-18-1 going into the match with Woods and would retire 17-22-1, finishing his career with 4 straight knockout losses.

In Woods' only trip as a pro outside of Europe, he traveled to the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon to face a still in his prime Roy Jones, Jr. Jones defeated Woods via technical knockout, when Woods' corner threw in the towel at 1:29 of round 6 on September 7, 2002.

Woods' last match was a 12-round unanimous decision victory over Julio Cesar Gonzalez on September 29, 2007 at Hallam FM Arena in Sheffield, England. It was a rematch of a previous match between the two on September 9, 2005 from the same location, that Woods, also won via 12-round unanimous decision. Woods had surgery on his right elbow following the rematch, which explains the long break between matches. The Englishman has also, has had surgery on his left elbow. The boxer says both elbows are fine and he is pain free. However, they could become a problem during the match.

The Ring ranks Woods as the number 2 contender at 175 pounds.

The 35-year-old Woods is 4 years younger then the 39-year-old Tarver. Woods holds a slight height advantage standing 6' 2" tall, while Tarver is 6' 1.5" tall. The Englishman has the reach advantage with a 76" wingspan, compare to Tarver's 74" wingspan. Neither boxers' unofficial weights approaching match time are available. Tarver will box out of the southpaw stance, and Woods will employ the orthodox stance. Bodog lists the odds on this match as nearly even with Tarver (-120) and Woods (-110).

The judges are from England, Australia and Florida. The referee is Frank Santore.

A few good left hands win round 1 for Tarver, 10-9. Woods may have won a close round 2, 10-9. Tarver is starting very slow, and Bernstein has noticed that Woods does not look mentally into the match, yet. Tarver wins round 3, 10-9. The crowd, which had at times booed the first match whenever the pace slowed to anything less then frenzied, is being unusually kind to this match. The crowd finally begins to boo this match at the end of round 4. Tarver wins round 4, 10-9. After 4 rounds, Tarver leads on my scorecard, 39-37. Press row scoring has Tarver winning by majority decision after 4 rounds: 40-36 (Tarver), 38-38, 39-38 (Tarver).

Tarver wins round 5, 10-9. In round 5, Tarver received a stern warning from the referee for both holding and pushing with his lead right arm. In this match, Woods almost seems determined to not punch. There are periods of 20 or more seconds, where Woods does not throw a punch. During those 20 seconds, Tarver is attempting and successfully punching Woods. Round 6 is all Tarver, and the Tampa resident wins round 6, 10-9. After 6 rounds Tarver is winning on my scorecard, 59-55. Press row has the match scored unanimously for Tarver after 6 rounds: 60-54, 58-56, 59-56.

Round 7 was close, until Woods decided not to punch for the last 1:30 of the round. Tarver wins round 7, 10-9. Tarver wins round 8, 10-9. After 8 rounds, Tarver leads on my scorecard, 79-73. However, after 8 rounds press row has Tarver winning by unanimous decision, but by a much closer margin: 79-73, 77-75, 77-76.

Woods wins round 9, 10-9. However, Woods nearly gave away the round by slowing his workrate in the last minute of the round. For no apparent reason, except maybe to play around, Tarver decided to box the first 2 minutes of round 10 out of the orthodox stance. When Woods started to gain an advantage against the ropes with 1 minute to go in the round, Tarver circled off the ropes and resumed his usual southpaw stance. Tarver is showing no respect for Woods skills in the ring. Once, Tarver switched to the southpaw stance, Woods stopped punching and Tarver probably stole what had been a relatively close round. Tarver wins round 10, 10-9. After 10 rounds Tarver leads on my scorecard, 98-92. The scores on press row have the match a draw after 10 rounds: 99-91 (Tarver), 95-95, 96-95 (Woods). The member of the press who has Woods ahead works for the UK newspaper The Sun.

Round 11 is close and the best action round of the match. Tarver takes it though, 10-9. Woods upper lip is swelling badly after round 11, following a straight left hand from Tarver. Tarver came out aggressively in the first minute of round 12 looking to finish the match strong. However, his pace slowed throughout the round, but Tarver finished strong the final 30 seconds and had his best offensive round of the match. Tarver showed no problems with fatigue at any point in this match. The American wins round 12 on my scorecard, 10-9, and the match, 118-110. The final press row scores had it unanimously for Tarver: 119-109, 115-113, 115-114.

Again, it is taking a long time for the judges to add up their scorecards. The official decision from the judges as read by the "Classy" Jimmy Lennon, Jr.: 116-112, 117-111, 119-109, all for the winner by way of unanimous decision, and new unified IBF and IBO Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, Antonio "The Magic Man" Tarver. The win moves Tarver to 27-4 with 19 of those wins coming by way of knockout.

In his post match interview Tarver said he is looking to face other champions. Tarver put Woods over huge in his interview for coming to America, being a true champion, and a tough opponent that forced Tarver to win a tough gritty decision.

In Woods' post match interview, after hearing Tarver's interview, Woods put the new unified champion over huge. Woods said he had lost to the proven best 175-pound boxer in the world. He said it was a dream come true to be a champion and get this match. (At this point Tarver then chimed in from off camera with a congratulations.) Woods then said he may retire, but had to go home and talk it over with his family.

Tarver then got a second post interview. Here, Tarver said he would be happy to face Dawson, because Dawson is less of a boxer tonight then he was the day before. Tarver called Dawson, "a wounded duck" following the match he went through tonight with Johnson. Tarver said Dawson would be easy pickings right now. Tarver then threw out the challenge to Dawson that if he wants it he can come and get it. Showing that he is a fan of Goldberg, Tarver finished his promo on Dawson telling the young boxer that he was "next". This promo was great, and made me want to see that match.

Tarver had his best recent showing tonight, but did not prove a lot in the victory. He did not tire out, but the pace of the match was very deliberate. Tarver was never pushed to work hard. It appeared Tarver was capable of doing much more then he did, but chose not to try to do more then was necessary to win. This match was less about him looking dominant in victory, then Woods doing nothing and losing because of it. However, Tarver will face Dawson next and if the match can live up to Tarver's promos it should be a classic. Stylistically though it could turn into a very boring match in the ring. Hopefully, one of the things Tarver can teach Dawson their match and its build is how to cut a decent promo.

It appears the real Woods stayed in England, rather then show up for this match. He looked awful, barely punching through the first 7 rounds of the match. After that, Woods only punched sporadically. It did not appear to be anything that Tarver was doing that was causing Woods to have his worst day in the ring in years. It appeared all of Woods' problems were of his own making. Tarver was available to be hit and Woods never did. This appears to have been a mental thing on Woods' part to cause the bad performance. He appears to need the comfort of boxing in England to perform well. If Woods is to continue boxing, instead of retire as he suggested, he will need to do it in England versus easy opposition to prove that this performance was a mental issue. If this performance was caused by lingering problems from his elbow surgery then Woods' career is probably over. Woods is probably unprepared to go through another series of elbow surgeries and rehabilitations if that is the problem, when thoughts of retirement are already in his mind.

The main event, like every recent outing from Tarver, was unimpressive. Watching the main event could be used to cure insomnia.