I watched the fight from a russian channel and I had low expectations and was suprised by the grit and determination by matt. we are under no false illusion as to his lack of skill and potential and everybody knew that he was only useful as a easy payday for rus's first defence. In round 5-6 it looked pretty hopeless for skelton as he was being hit by cleaner shots and showed nothing in terms of overcoming the champ, however it was apparent that chagaev was slowing and looking like this was not the easy workout he had expected. skelton proceeded to tie his man up and challenge him on the inside genrally making his life difficult. chagaev was breathing heavily between rounds and by 9 and 10 he slowed down in his footwork/handspeed and his sweet combinations were reduced to single punches trying to get skelton out of there - which was never going to happen. i'm not saying that i agree with his tactics, and it looked very ugly at times, but it's boxing and survival. most critics do not know what it's like in there, and boxers like jack johnson were using these kind of tactics years ago. Whilst in all fairness the decision by the judges was correct, skelton showed a glimmer of the pride that so often pushes our british boxers further than their potential and reminds me of fighters like frank bruno, johnny nelson, carl williams, henry cooper and lloyd honeygan. on paper this fight was a mid round TKO to the champ, however skelton walked away showing that he's no world beater, but on the other hand no pushover. remains a stern test to any up and coming heavyweight.
Its pretty much what everyone expected......but it shows how poor the division is when he gets a shot at any belt.
If only Audley had Skelton's chin, more like. All the heart in the world wouldn't do him any good on the elite level with a chin like that.
Skelton did well in that he made the fight the only type of fight he realistically stood a chance in.. a maul. Not knocking him, its how he fights. He's limited and does the best with what he has. The ref was decent, and could teach the Mayweather/Hatton ref a thing or two about keeping things fair without being a dick about it. I had it a little closer than the judges but a fair result at the end of the day. He lost but Matt can be proud of his performance. Chagaev on the other hand didn't impress me. He didn't look as sharp as normal and didnt show the skills I expect of a HW champ. Still, he had too much for Skelton.
If you look at the big picture Skelton got a shot at a heavyweight title at age 40 after taking up the sport at 33 years of age.He has achieved quite a lot considering the limited talent he has
I thought for a 40 year old man who only started boxing professionally in his mid 30's Skelton had a lot to be proud of tonight. I thought the scoring was bull****, I had it a bit closer than that but Skelton definately lost so it doesn't really matter that much. Having said that anyone that says the heavyweight division is in decent shape should be forced to watch that fight over and over for a fortnight.
