BOXING: GEORGE KIMBALLreflects on Saturday night's momentous occasion and the options now facing Bernard Dunne and his management team
GIVEN THE ethereal state in which Bernard Dunne has been floating since Saturday night’s momentous events at the O2 this probably hasn’t even occurred to him, but it has undoubtedly crossed Brian Peters’ mind more than once.
Had Saturday night’s world title fight been conducted under the auspices of the Mexican-based World Boxing Council instead of the World Boxing Association, which operates out of Panama, the former organization’s policy of “open scoring” could have had a chilling effect on the outcome.
In WBC title fights, the judges’ running totals are revealed after the fourth and the eighth rounds. The startling revelation that Dunne trailed by six, five, and three points on the scorecards of the three American judges working at ringside at the O2 suggests that the Irish challenger was behind by at least those margins after eight, and had that information been announced it might well have altered the manner in which both Dunne and Ricardo Cordoba approached the championship rounds.
Cordoba, had he been aware that all he had to do was remain upright over the last two rounds in order to retain his championship, might have fought differently, and Dunne, had he been forewarned of the almost insurmountable task he faced to win a decision, might have dangerously thrown caution to the winds in an effort to score the knockout that essentially represented his only hope of winning.
In the end, Dunne knocked Cordoba out not because he suddenly turned into a Tysonesque punching machine, but because he patiently boxed behind his jab and let the opportunities present themselves.
Cordoba, for his part, is by habit a slick-boxing counter-puncher who prefers to let his opponent take the lead, hoping to capitalize on the other fellow’s mistakes. This had portended the possibility of an Alphonse-and-Gaston scenario in the run-up to Saturday’s title fight, but at Friday’s weigh-in Miguel Diaz, the Argentina-born cornerman who had been imported to work with the Cordoba faction for the Dunne fight, revealed that despite the Panamanian’s handlers’ insistence that they had not relied on videotape of Dunne’s prior fights, they had in fact thoroughly deconstructed footage of the 2007 Kiko Martinez debacle and had made a conscious decision to test Dunne’s chin early and often.
His uncharacteristic display of early aggression led to Cordoba becoming the first to taste the canvas. The champion was the victim of a flash knockdown in that round when Dunne stepped inside a lazy right and nailed him with a right to the body followed by a left hook to the jaw.
But Cordoba’s plan appeared to have paid dividends in the fifth, when he floored Dunne twice and appeared to be on the verge of ending the fight (the automatic three-knockdown rule was in effect), only to have Dunne survive through a combination of sheer will and an improved facility for judiciously wrapping his opponent up in a clinch. (Had Dunne been able to tie up Martinez that effectively, he might well have survived that first round.) Cordoba’s early aggression, along with Dunne’s more patient approach, left the Irishman the fresher fighter by the 11th, when he decked the Panamanian three times. While Canadian referee Hubert Earle signalled the fight over the instant Cordoba hit the floor with the third knockdown, it will go into the books as a knockout, not a TKO. Cordoba, in fact, never did get up. After oxygen was administered in the ring, he was removed from the ring by stretcher and transported by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital.
Dunne, who enjoyed wild scenes of wild celebration at the Ballsbridge Inn, will undoubtedly take a few months off to enjoy his crowning glory, though the vacation may not last as long as he might have wished. In gaining Cordoba’s title, the new champion also inherited his obligation for a mandatory defence against the top-rated contender – in this case, Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, a Thai with a 37-1 record who owned the only previous defeat of Cordoba, a split decision in Bangkok four years ago.
If their representatives can’t come to an agreement over the next few months, the WBA would likely order a purse bid, and given the astonishing response to Saturday night’s affair, it is almost inconceivable that Peters couldn’t outbid the Thais for the right to host the mandatory.
All signs, then, point to Dunne returning to the O2 for an even bigger event (if that is imaginable) this summer. The difference being that this time he will be taking home the champion’s share of the purse.
