Boxing News Boxing News
At the Convention Center in Hartford on Saturday, two of the top light heavies in the world were in action.
Ex-WBC,WBA and IBF Champion Antonio Tarver had his hands full with a fired up Elvir Muriqi enroute to a twelve round majority decision to take the vacant IBO belt while current reigning WBC Champion Chad Dawson stopped an outgunned Jesus Ruiz in the sixth round.
Tarver had been out of the ring for a year following his comprehensive defeat at the hands of Bernard Hopkins and the 38 year old displayed much ring rust along with a definite lack of stamina.
But much of Tarver’s uneven performance was down to the plucky Muriqi, who pressed the taller former champion for much of the bout.
Muriqui, 34-4 (12), was stepping up a great deal in level of competition but refused to be intimidated by Tarver as he moved in and many times landed hard body shots at will against the lanky southpaw.
When Muriqui was able to close distance, Tarver, 25-4 (18), had difficulty in dealing with the Bronx based Albanian but “The Magic Man” got it together in the later rounds, backing off Muriqi and landing hurtful combinations in sporadic bursts.
Muriqi soon realized that after each one of these efforts from Tarver, the ex-champion would have to rest and the Albanian would attack Tarver often enough to keep the fight close.
After a spirited twelfth and final round, Tarver was declared the winner by majority decision on scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 114-114.
Chad Dawson had an easier time of it than Tarver but then again, the 24 year old southpaw WBC Champion was facing an opponent of even rougher skill than Muriqi.
Dawson’s advantages in every department were apparent from the opening bell against Jesus Ruiz of Mexico, who had never beaten a top level opponent over the course of his career.
Ruiz bravely came forward but had little in the way of coordinated offensive attack, rather he would attempt power shots that were almost always countered by Dawson before they could land.
Dawson was just two fast with far better reflexes and Ruiz slowly but surely was getting ground down by a nice mix of body and head shots.
In the fifth, Ruiz finally started to use the jab on his way in and that clearly caused Dawson some problems but by the sixth frame the Mexican went back to his old ways and paid the price for doing so.
In the sixth, Dawson’s body work paid off as Ruiz started to react in pain to the spearing mid section attack. That opened up the challenger on the ropes and Dawson went to work, laying into Ruiz with efficient combination shelling that forced referee Johnny Callas to step in at 2:00 of the round.
Jesus Ruiz falls to 19-5 (17) while Chad Dawson stays perfect at 24-0 (16) and retains the WBC crown for the first time. There has been talk of Dawson perhaps facing Tarver in the near future in a unification bout.
