Woeful Woods tamed by Tarver by Ian McNeilly Apr 13th 2008

Clinton Woods lost his IBF light-heavyweight belt last night after being comprehensively outboxed by America's Antonio Tarver.   Tarver won on the scorecards by margins of four, six and ten rounds – the latter verdict coming from Doncaster judge Howard Foster.  I scored it 118-111.   In truth, it was an incredibly disappointing performance from a man who was a very seasoned and experienced champion. He made 39-year-old Tarver look great – and he isn't.   Woods' underrated trainer Richard Poxon hit on the problem as early as the interval after round two as he urged his man to “believe you can do it”.  It seemed that Woods never really had the necessary self-belief, a fact that seemed to be confirmed in a post-fight interview when he said “I'm happy with what I've done in my career.  I never thought I'd get as far as I have.  I'm just a skinny kid from Sheffield.”   Of course, the one quality Tarver has in spades is self-belief and right from the opening bell in his home arena (St Pete Times' Forum, Tampa, Florida) he tried to convince all concerned that he was the rightful champion.  One of the first to be won over was Clinton Woods.   The first round was cagey but a clear one for the challenger (well, IBO champion), as he cracked home two left uppercuts from his southpaw stance.   Although I gave Woods the eighth session and a share of two others, the only round he clearly won was the second in which he took up a closer stance and banged in good body shots.  Tarver, in a pattern he repeated throughout the fight, threw eye-catching punches in the last ten seconds of the round to try and sway the judges.   Not that I want to ape the style of one of Boxing News' appalling new American writers by dictating my notes to you but I feel it's appropriate to say that after the third round I scrawled “If things don't change, Woods is going to get well beaten.”  Tarver was only 2-1 up by this point but the dreaded sense that an irreversible Tarver tide had begun was inescapable.  The Floridian was dictating a slow pace off the backfoot whilst Woods was marching forward keeping a high guard, not getting his shots off.   Woods has never had the best defence and Tarver has never had the quickest hands so it was an alarming sign in the fourth round that Clinton couldn't even slip straight shots.  Whenever the Sheffielder showed genuine aggression, Tarver cleverly tied him up.  Woods also allowed himself to be pushed off far too often.   The rot had well and truly set in.  Tarver was doing the eye-catching, accurate work as Woods trudged forward without much idea.  Tarver cracked Woods with a left in the sixth to which the soon to be ex-champion reacted with an open arm gesture which was supposed to say ‘you didn't hurt me' but might as well have said ‘what can I do?'  By this point, Woods' innate lack of self-belief – hugely ironic considering his wonderful career – was laid bare for all to see.  It was hard to watch, unless you were a Tarver fan.   For a fleeting moment I felt Woods might be in the ascendancy in the seventh when he cracked home a beautiful right to the body which definitely hurt Tarver.  Then he followed up with precisely nothing.  I gave Clinton the eighth on workrate but Tarver restored his almost complete dominance in the ninth with many accurate pit-pat, scoring blows.    By now, Woods looked like he'd been to Lesley Ash's plastic surgeon – like a white Rio Ferdinand with a bad botox job.  But Richard Poxon said something profound to try and rouse his man which Woods was simply unable to respond to.  Pointing to Woods' swollen mouth, he said, “Forget those bruises, they'll be alright tomorrow.”  He tapped Clinton's heart.  “It's that that's going to hurt.”   I gave Woods a share of the tenth and in the last minute of the penultimate round, a hard Tarver straight left finally sparked Woods into life – far, far too little, too late.   Tarver certainly didn't need to go for it in the last round but such was his dominance, he put on a mini-showcase and hit Woods at will.   There was only to be one winner and it's likely that Woods' rumoured pay day against Joe Calzaghe has gone now.  The man of steel might even hang them up.   The annoying thing is, Woods was/is so much better than this performance.  If only he believed in himself half as much as we did.

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Woods fight Apr 13th 2008, 12:28:47 by cherries Nice article. I think Tarver just had the style to beat Clinton another factor was Clinton was fighting away from Home which effected his motivation. Hard to see where Clinton goes from here. He doesn't want to go back to British and European styles. He might retire if another big fight doesn't come next.