Dereck Chisora retained his WBO international and WBA international heavyweight titles with a unanimous-decision win over Kevin Johnson on Saturday night in London.
BoxNation has the judges' scorecards, all of whom gave Chisora 10 of the 12 rounds:
As you'd guess from the result, it was a rather one-sided fight. The champion took a couple of minutes to get his footing, and once the brief feeling-out period was over, he was in complete control.
This fight was originally reserved for Andriy Rudenko, but he pulled out after rupturing his Achilles tendon during training in January.
Getting a new opponent on such short notice can go either way. In some cases, the replacement is a step below the previous guy, so the fight becomes easier. On the other hand, you can be left with little time to devise a completely different game plan for somebody who fights nothing like the guy you prepared for in the first place.
Johnson started out the fight quickly. He took the first round by letting Chisora get on the offensive and countering his best stuff. Greg Lambert of The Visitor thought that the challenger could give a fighter like Chisora a lot of problems:
The opening three minutes would be all that Johnson had, though. That's all the time the champion needed in order to grab the reins and take over.
Johnson used everything in his arsenal in the first round, while Chisora was merely warming up.
Round 5 was arguably where the heavyweight champion won the fight. He knocked Johnson down with a huge right hand. Although the challenger would recover and get to his feet, the damage had already been done:
By that point, Chisora had built a major lead, and from the fifth round on, he was content to keep Johnson at bay and fight not to lose. And Johnson is tough enough that he wasn't going to quit and go down easily no matter how much the fight had gotten away from him.
After the bout, the champ acknowledged that he expected a drawn-out contest:
The strategy wasn't pleasant for the fans to watch, but it was productive nonetheless.
Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated was less than complimentary about the fight:
Simply put, the American was second best on the night, and there was a stark gulf in class between him and Chisora.
The plan down the line for Chisora is a bout with Tyson Fury, who won earlier in the night. The two fought before in July 2011, with Fury winning a unanimous decision.
The 25-year-old likes his chances in the potential rematch:
Judging by how Fury looked in his win over Joey Abell, it may be a different result if the two get in the ring together again.
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