British heavyweight Dereck Chisora (18-4, 12 KO’s) had to survive a 4th round scare tonight to stop Edmund Gerber (23-2, 14 KO’s) in the 5th round to capture the vacant EBU heavyweight title at a packed Copper Box Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, London, United Kingdom.
Chisora wore Gerber down and unloaded a storm of shots on him in the 5th round while he was backed up against the ropes. Referee Guido Cavalleri stopped the bout at 2:55 of the round with Gerber looking hurt and not throwing punches back.
In the 4th round, Gerber hurt Chisora with 2 solid right hands to the head that had Chisora backing up and circling the ring for the remainder of the round. Gerber didn’t have the mobility, conditioning or the power to move in and finish Chisora off the way that someone like David Haye or Deontay Wilder would have done.
After the fight, Chisora said “If Tyson Fury wants to fight, then let’s do it.”
Chisora lost a 12 round unanimous decision to Fury in July of 2011 in a one-sided loss. Fury just got some bad news today with his September 28th opponent David Haye suffering a cut while in training. Their fight will now be postponed until a later date. It’s not known whether Fury will look to get in a fight before then or if he’ll wait for Haye’s cut to heal in 2-6 months.
Gerber didn’t have the movement, speed or the power to keep Chisora off of him tonight. Gerber stood right in front of Chisora and allowed him to plod in and land his combination shots. Chisora wasn’t hard for Gerber to hit; it’s just that Gerber didn’t have the power to do anything with Chisora the way that Haye had in stopping him in the 5th round last year in July. Gerber also didn’t have the reach or the mobility to dominate Chisora the way that Fury did.
Chisora looked like he was in good shape tonight, and it was nice to see him trim for a change. Chisora still has a long ways to go before he can get a title shot, and if he’s serious about wanting to fight Haye and Fury again, then it’s likely we won’t be seeing Chisora get another crack at a title because those guys seemed to really have his number.
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Unbeaten middleweight Billy Joe Saunders (19-0, 10 KO’s) slapped and held his way to a controversial 12 round unanimous decision over Ryder (15-1, 9 KO’s) in a fight where you had to ignore pretty much everything that Ryder was doing in order to see Saunders as winning it. The final judges scores were 115-114, 115-113 and 115-113.
Saunders did a lot of holding in the fight, and you can make a case to where he should have lost points for the constant clinching. It was hard to give Saunders any rounds because he getting hit hard, and about all he could do was slap and hold in response. You’ve got to feel sorry for Ryder because he looked like the much better fighter tonight and he didn’t deserve this loss.
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Other boxing action on the card:
Frankie Gavin UD 12 David Barnes
Liam Walsh MD 12 Joe Murray
Paul Butler UD 12 Miguel Gonzalez
Dmitry Chudinov pts 8 Max Maxwell