I’ll start off with eating a large slice of humble pie as I said I could not
see how Marcus Beyer would be able to beat Danny Green. Well, Marcus Beyer
showed everyone how he overcame some serious mental demons from the last
bout to score a majority points victory over Danny Green in Zwickau, Germany
this morning. This was not a hometown decision, in fact Danny Green should
feel lucky that the Italian judge scored the bout a 114-114 draw. With this
said I have read on another website that the judges or a judge did not score
a 12th round knockdown 10-8 for Danny Green and this would have changed the
outcome of the fight to a Danny Green victory. Even if this turns out to be
true I still feel Beyer won the bout but perhaps Green could leverage for a
third match up! How could I get this so wrong? I’ll touch on this later but
firstly congratulations to Marcus Beyer on a superb display of boxing. He
may not make for exciting fights but he is effective and the tactic he used
to beat Green were very impressive.
Beyer certainly learned from the last bout to hold a tight glove defense and
this deflected most of Green's power shots. Once again Beyer used good
movement to stay out of the way of Green’s big bombs. Green did have some
reasonable success landing his jab fairly cleanly and often during the bout
but it was Beyer who was landing the cleaner and more effective punches.
Beyer’s countering straight left hand to Green’s body after slipping
Danny’s right hand power shots proved to be the most decisive punch of the
bout as Beyer hurt Green in the early rounds with this punch and I believe
this took away some of Danny’s energy levels and power. It also made Green
susceptible to Beyer’s sharp counter punching.
Green nearly pulled off a miracle knockout victory in the 12th round when he
connected with his first real clean right hand that badly hurt Beyer,
Green’s follow up punches knocked down Beyer early in the round. Beyer
bravely climbed back to his feet and took a few more powerful uppercuts from
Green and somewhere in the action Green lost his mouth piece and the break
to have the mouth piece cleaned and replaced gave Beyer the extra time
needed to get his legs & breath back and Green probably suffering the
effects of Beyer’s consistent & effective body work from the previously 11
rounds saw the Australian’s attack fade as the round progressed and the
German managed to see out the final round.
Both men embraced after the bout and showed each other a great amount of
respect as they should. Each man has probably been the other’s toughest
opponent to deal with in their respective careers. Green acknowledged that
he had a great deal of respect for Marcus Beyer, "simply did not do enough to
win the fight” and that “Marcus Beyer was the better man on the night.” The
closest thing said to an excuse by Danny was that “he trained very hard
and could not get going.” Classy comments indeed from a man who was clearly
very disappointed.
Before this fight Green wanted to receive fair treatment from the officials
and from my perspective the officiating was good but then again the hometown
fighter was winning the fight. Beyer wanted Green to fight fairly and this
also happened with neither fighter really bending the rules in the bout.
So what was difference this time round? Danny Green certainly did not look
as good as he usually does an in my opinion I feel that the recent level of each man’s activity
was the difference! Had Danny Green had
this rematch after his bout with Eric Lucas perhaps he would have been on a
roll of good form that would have seen him come up with a victory. But Green
only fought twice in 2004 against average opposition and Beyer had kept
fairly active against better quality opposition completing a lot more rounds
and I really think this made the difference.
Another factor may be the
fallout from the massive dehydration Green suffered after his bout with Sean
Sullivan. I have had a lot of people tell me that Green may have been
permanently physically effected by this dehydration less than 12 months ago.
I’m not a doctor but perhaps there is merit to this statement considering
Danny himself said he couldn’t get going. The stalling tactics employed by Wilfried Sauderland (Beyer’s promoter) to this rematch really worked out in
Beyer’s favour.
Danny Green can hold his head proudly as he put on a commendable effort only
losing by a very close split decision and nearly pulled off a 12 round
knockout but it was not to be. A million dollar (Australian dollars) may
help soothe Danny’s pain. Green may have legitimately lost his first fight
but he did not surrender a victory due to an unwillingness to fight like
Anthony Mundine did to Manny Siaca. Speaking of Mundine, I can just imagine
the comments we will have to hear from him about Green’s performance.
Danny Green will remain an extremely marketable fighter in Australia but the
main question on my mind is where does Danny Green go from here. Perhaps
Jeff Fenech can increase Green’s activity and fight more regularly now they
are not tied up with the restrictions they have had in order to get the
rematch with Marcus Beyer. It's probably important to build Danny’s
confidence and form back up and a match up against Andre Thysse or a rematch
with Eric Lucas in a couple of months would probably be ideal comeback bout
and then look towards a Super Fight with Anthony Mundine who should he be
successful in his attempt to regain the WBA Super Middleweight title against Mikkel Kessler in May.
Based on the weekend’s performance I would have to
consider Mundine odds on to beat Green. Then again, Mundine has not fought
anything other than cannon fodder since he lost his title to many Siaca and
could suffer the effects of lack of fighting competitive bouts. The other
option could be to work his way up the IBF rankings and look for a title
shot at the very active Jeff Lacy. From the form displayed in his recent
bouts it appears to me that Lacy is the best in division (an opinion I had
before Green’s loss this morning!). Certainly a Lacy-Green bout in 12-18
months would be entertaining for the fans with Lacy being an obvious
favorite.
On the Beyer-Green II under card there was a blatant hometown decision
where Bob Mirovic of Australian was clearly beating local Timo Hoffman only
to lose a wide unanimous 12 round decision. Even the locals booed the
decision and that is saying something for Germany.
I had been expecting to be writing about Danny Green’s first title defense, instead I am left wondering if Marcus Beyer considers this
to be the best victory of his career. Hopefully Beyer will look to a
unification bout with one of the other champions but my guess is that his
promoter won’t want another dangerous opponent next so I expect they will
look for an easy defense and we will still have a few uncompetitive bouts
occurring in Germany for a while yet. I am now left to look forward in hope
that Anthony Mundine and Paul Briggs will have more success in their
respective world title bouts in May.
