26.05.07 – By Miguel Velasco: Steve “USS” Cunningham (20-1, 10 KO’s), gained revenge for a previous loss on Saturday, by winning a 12-round majority decision over IBF cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (37-2, 27 KO’s) at Katowice, in Poland. The final judges’ scores were 116-112, 115-112 and 114-114.
The scores, however, were not indicative of the actual fight that took place, I must say, as Wlodarczyk did very little until late in the fight. It’s not that he didn’t try, but he clearly was putting in the effort, yet his hand speed was so poor, made much worse by the nature in which he was telegraphing his punches.
Cunningham threw most of the punches, jabbing Wlodarczyk at will and controlling virtually every exchange until late in the bout. In fact, Wlodarczyk didn’t land more than 10 punches in any round – at least by my count – until the 9th round, and by that time, he was hopelessly behind in the fight. In the fourth round, Wlodarczyk dropped to his knee on the canvas after getting hit with jab from Cunningham. Apparently, a thumb had gotten in Wlodarczyk, and he had dropped to the canvas to take a quick break. Nonetheless, it was counted as a knockdown and made it even worse for Wlodarczyk.
The Polish crowd had little to cheer for since Cunningham was doing all the work, however, on the rare occasions – very rare – that Wlodarczyk would land, they’d quickly scream. I say ‘quickly,’ because as soon as Wlodarczyk would land a rare shot, Cunningham would come back with several punches that would dampen the crowds’ enthusiasm causing them to shut their yap in mid scream. By the 8th round, it was looking desperate as Wlodarczyk was still missing badly with his slow punches and getting tied up by Cunningham when he would get in close. In between 8th and 9th rounds, Wlodarczyk’s trainer was furious with him, letting him know how badly he was fighting.
Taking this with him into the 9th, Wlodarczyk fought well – for him – landing at least four hard punches in the round. Never mind that Cunningham hit him with a gazillion punches, it was enough for me to give the round to Wlodarczyk out of sympathy. That was it for Wlodarczyk, I hate to say. He got punched around for the next three rounds, and wasn’t a factor the rest of the way. I give him credit for trying, but he wasn’t in Cunningham’s league, just like last time. Thankfully, they got the scores somewhat correct this time around. I personally scored it 11 rounds to 1 for Cunningham.