09.04.04 – By Andrew Mullinder – If the ultimate allure of boxing is that it produces a purity of competition and athletic expressiveness which is as basic as primal nature but irresistibly thrilling and unrivalled by any other sport, what Michael Brodie and In Jin Chi produced for us last October during their epic battle, was a sizzling reminder of what a wonderful sport the Hardest Game can be. For the 48 minutes their incandescent battle raged, the two indomitable combatants managed produce a performance to light up the dark world modern day boxing, where so called contenders like Ricky Hatton, well past their 30th fight, are still fighting blown up lightweight journeymen and world titles are devalued by the lecherous alphabet sanctioning bodies who affix their names to belts. Whatever ‘Ring Magazine’ says about Gatti-Ward III, Michael Brodie versus Injin Chi was the best fight of 2003.
While Brodie would be called the ‘boxer’ of the pair, he fights most effectively moving forward. With his tight, short punches he works best from the medium distance, using solid footwork and a good jab to move into range before attacking with pinpoint combinations and moving out again. He is capable of excellent lateral movement. Brodie’s one weakness may be defence, which, when coupled with the nagging suspicion that he left his optimum weight and some of his punch resistance behind him in the 122 pound division, means that no matter how in control of a fight Brodie is, his fans can never feel 100% confident when he boxes. Chi, on the other hand, is a real throw back. Way back to the days of Harry Greb and Homicide Hank. Chi moves inexorably forward, wind milling looping but heavy punches incessantly and using his immense strength to push his opponents backwards under a torrent of blows. Chi’s main defence is the whirlwind of punches he lets loose and his ghoulish ability to absorb head shots.
From the first few rounds in their October encounter, it was clear that in the absence of the sort of slick and awkward defensive skills of, for example, Cory Spinks, Brodie was going to have to force Chi back by standing his ground, moving into more of a slugger’s stance and hurting the Korean strong man enough to stop him in his tracks. As Jack Trickett, Brodie’s manager has recently observed, “Chi can not fight going backwards – we thought so after watching the tape of his fight with Eric Morales, and we know so after Mike’s fight with him”. In doing exactly this against an opponent as formidably strong as Chi and after he had been in desperate trouble early in the second round, Brodie showed not only outrageous bravery, but also what a well schooled, all-round fighter he has become. In short, Brodie took Chi on at his own game, pitching his formidable inside boxing skills and bravery against Chi’s granite chin and volume of punches – and in doing so he came within an inch of fulfilling his dream of becoming world champion.
Barry Hearn, the promoter of Saturday’s rematch between the pair, argues that “[the second fight is]…a question of Mike fighting a smarter fight and not getting drawn into a macho contest of who’s going to take and dish out more. If Michael fights the same fight this time he has problems, but if he boxes the way he boxed Juan Cabrera the WBC belt is as good as his”. However, Hearn’s optimistic prognosis is perhaps a touch simplistic. It must be remembered that Brodie tried to do exactly what Hearn advocates in their first fight, only to be immediately swamped by the swarming Chi. Brodie’s tactics that night were hardly an exhibition of macho bravado; it was clear that whenever Brodie took a breather from the trenches and tried to box and move, Chi built up a head of steam, winning rounds comfortably. In that encounter, Brodie’s success came when he forced the Korean back, because, as Trickett pointed out, Chi can not fight moving backwards. And so we are left with a conundrum: how can Brodie make best use of his superior boxing skills, staying out of the Korean’s way, while forcing Chi to fight off the back foot?
It is in this context that Brodie can have cause for some optimism, because while the Mancunian readily admits that “I only think I hurt him once to the head. He can really take a punch…” Brodie managed to cause considerable damage to the body. If Brodie can somehow pick off Chi coming in, slip under his punches, hurt him the body on the inside, before clinching or trying to get out, he may, just, have a chance. Trickett agrees: “If Chi thinks he got it to the body the last time, wait till he gets what’s coming this time because, believe me, my kid’s going to rip his fucking body to shreds on the inside.” But in doing so Brodie will have to step directly into Chi’s arc of fire and this is a cause for real concern considering Brodie’s predilection for suffering flash knockdowns and grotesque eye swelling. In effect, ‘ripping his body on the inside’ may be Brodie’s best chance of victory, but also his greatest risk of defeat.
Most analysts have pointed out that most rematches fail to live up to the standard of their predecessors, however, Chi only knows one way to fight, and the only way Brodie can beat him is to fly improbably close to the sun while somehow managing to stop his wings from melting. The styles in the fight all load up in Chi’s favour, but somehow, I see Brodie edging a hard earned victory. If recent history is anything to go by we have seen that sluggers can be nullified. Perhaps Brodie will use the tactics Vernon Forrest attempted in his rematch with Ricardo Mayorga. Forrest tried to keep his punches straight, pushing them inside the arc of Mayorga’s wild swings. It was all stiff jabs and snappy crosses on the outside and clinching on the inside, and it led to a close decision which many felt ‘the Viper’ deserved. If Brodie could attempt something similar, but work on the inside too – where he can expect more joy than the tentative Forrest ever received – he could (just) fulfil his dream of becoming a world champion.
I expect this fight to be a tense, smouldering affair as Brodie will control the latter half of the fight but stay in a permanent position of being one step away from calamity. He will probably – in an effort to avoid the early knockdown he suffered in the first fight – be cautious in the early rounds, before taking the fight in the middle and later rounds and staying out of harms way in the last two, to take a hard fought, close, probably split and maybe hometown, decision.
Brodie W 12 (SD)