Corrie Sanders vs Francesco Damiani

I could see it lasting a few rounds until Sanders times and lands on Damiani. Then I don't see Damiani being able to survive. Corrie by knock out.

Prime for Prime obviously.

 

Sanders wins this at his best, but if he wins he wins early.

The longer fight gets on, the tougher it will be.

 

Damiani likely outboxes him to a decision win. Sanders has very few KO wins over boxers who were ranked in the top 10 at the time he fought them. He does, however, have several losses in that category.

In fact, Wladamir Klitschko may be the ONLY win period for Corrie Sanders over a boxer ranked in the top ten at heavyweight when Sanders fought them.

 

Damiani didn't look the part, but the man could box. His trouble was he did not deal well with power oriented fighters.

He's 0-2-1 vs the three best punchers he fought in McCall, Mercer and Page. Damiani won the page fight via decision, thanks to 2 points being taken from Page. Otherwise, the fight is a draw. I haven't seen it.

Anyway, Sanders had better speed and range in comparison to Mercer and McCall. I think he'd take Damianai out of his comfort zone and stop him in the mid to late rounds.

 

I think Sanders would stop him, but it could go either way.

 

Well, that's quite a bit better than anything Damiani did.

 

Not really. He had a very accomplished amateur career (2 time Olympian), and beat Tyrell Biggs by knockout at a time in which Biggs' only loss was to Tyson.

He did beat Greg Page, and was pitching a shutout over Mercer until Ray landed a haymaker on the tip of Damiani's nose. But for that one (extremely fortunate) punch, he would have handed undefeated Mercer his first loss.

I agree Sanders has a chance for an early knockout. But, I am sure Damiani would be cognizant of Corrie's strengths, and would box for several rounds to tire him out. Sanders had very few quality KOs late in a fight.

 

He didn't knock Biggs out. Biggs got cut in a competitive fight. Best performance of Damiani's career.

Corrie almost beat Rahman, sort of like the Mercer fight.

And Page was past it.

Corrie has the better resume because he beat Wlad. And then he has the wins over guys like Al Cole, Purrity, Czyz, Nelson, etc. which are okay but not great.

 

Why does Francesco Damiani seem in better shape now than he ever did when he was fighting?

Damiani by far was the better boxer of the two. He was an excellent boxer/puncher.

All things being equal, I'd take Damiani.

But both guys would often come in out of shape. If Sanders was fit, and Damiani came in soft, Sanders wins ... by close decision or late TKO.

Otherwise, I'd pick Francesco to win nine times out of 10.

 

Damiani is another fighter that I have followed quite a bit.

His resume is deceiving imho and doesn't nearly do his abilities justice. Problem is, he wasn't a very flashy fighter, and didn't look the part either. He looked like a big boiled potato to be honest.

But Damiani could do a bit of everything. His timing was excellent and he had a very useful jab. He had decent power and a good chin and could hit well with either hand. If you watch a series of his fights, say Damiani/Stevenson, Damiani/Biggs, Damiani/Page and Damiani/Mercer you really start getting an idea of what he could do. He was outboxing Mercer without too much difficulty until Ray managed to land a sickening shot on him that took him out in a flash. He was also outboxing Page handily and imho (and that of the commentators) deserved a UD even without the infractions that Page committed (spat out his mouthpiece something like 10 times).

Sanders is one of my favourite boxers and has a lot of attributes that could pose problems for Damiani, particularly his speed and punching power. I think that if Sanders managed to catch the Italian with one of his big shots he could end it early. But, to carry the ****ysis further: Sanders' best punch is probably his counter-left straight. I think Francesco might not be as susceptible to it as other fighters, because he defended his chin quite well and didn't often get drastically out of balance.

I think prime for prime I'd take Sanders by decision. He was much busier, flashier, and had a large speed advantage over Damiani. His punches were straighter and if he managed to get Damiani in trouble I think he could finish it. However, if Sanders had one of his off nights (like his stinker against Kulpin) I reckon Damiani would grind him down and possibly (probably?) stop him late.

Not an easy fight for either of them.

 

I really enjoyed that fight, even though I knew that Damiani would lose at the end when I watched it. As it went on, I thought to myself "surely he can't lose from here" But damn, Mercer could hit and Damiani had a big nose in the wrong place at the wrong time :yep All hail Ray Mercer! Haven't seen the McCall fight. Read an interview where he said he was only 60% for that one, which in my mind is a daft thing to do against a hitter like McCall. It would have been nice to have seen Francesco against some more American opponents, like Tyson for instance. I think that he'd have put up a better showing than people think.

 

I agree to a large extent with this. Sanders really had great footwork, speed and stamina as a younger fighter. I loved the way he could reel off 4-5 jabs in a row and then evade the incoming. He had all sorts of nice punches which looked awesome when he'd reel them off in combination. The way he despatched Weathers was terrific, combining head and body shots to set each other up.

I can't help but feel that two things worked against Sanders. 1) His promoters couldn't get any useful fights and 2) I suspect that this disillusionment coupled with his falling in love with power punches led to his poor training habits. Volbrecht / Berman should have kept his schedule packed and his nose in the gym. Alas.

Some posters have said that he'd have been better off going to America and fighting under a US promoter. Business - wise, that suggestion makes a lot of sense, but maybe he liked it here in SA too much. There's a lot to be said for South Africa as a place to live.