Lewis Ritson exposed

I'm not ready to write him off yet. He is only what 24-25? Should get with a new trainer, take it slow, work on his game and see how he is in a couple of years.

 

Agree this.

The guy was blowing away British level fighters, so he got put in with a good European level one and came up slightly short. What's the alternative, put him in with another journeyman who he can blast away and learn nothing? Guy is only 25 and will have learnt more from this fight than the previous 17 put together. He can go back to the drawing board and improve if he has the desire.

 

Ok Len, I'll let you off seen as tho it's you.

 

He was not up against a good European fighter - the guy was beaten by Mashed Up Dodd who was then beaten by Mashed Head Coyle.

The guy is 25 not 19 so his progression ability is overstated like everything else about him.

That performance last night was like watching Chunky DeGale in his loss to a can last Dec - he was coming back from a serious shoulder injury but Ritson was simply Pony.

People reach their level in life and I don't think Ritson has much higher to go.

 

I gotta say one thing about you Spartacus....you do recognize class when you’re u see it....

 

My biggest worry about last night was how Patera looked world class. He had a solid chin, great punch variety, worked the body very well and had an unbelievable workrate for the full 12 rounds. I thought he looked fantastic which doesn't say much about Ritson.

I'm not writing Ritson off just yet though because stylistically it was a bad matchup for an untested fighter. He's got good power and a great heart. He boxed well the first four rounds but the bodyshots slowed him down and he didn't put his shots together well in the second half of the fight. The gameplan needed to change and it didn't. Patera's fitness was scary.

Back to the drawing board. One positive is that Ritson will have learned more last night than in his whole career.

 

Well the thing is, what if he’d been up against a puncher in there?

 

Exposed is a bit much. It was a competitive fight even if Patera won clearly. Some good things from Ritson early, he has a really nice jab and decent punch selection on the inside, he uses his jab well to force his opponent onto the ropes and then can hit them with combinations. He can punch but he's not concussive enough where he's gonna walk through people up the levels.

He fights very flat footed which is fine on the offence but makes more limitations if you need to go backwards or move laterally. His defence isn't good but he showed a fair bit of heart and determination as he was clearly hurt to the body at times, gritted his teeth and saw the fight off.

I don't think him blowing away domestic opposition has helped him moving up the levels as I always worried that lack of rounds would come back to bite him once someone was durable enough to take his punches and this is what happened, he hasn't fully learned to pace himself over twelve yet and his gas tank dropped off half way, he started neglecting the jab and resorted to following Patera instead of trying to cut him off, he needs to keep his jab going all fight and move his opponent into dangerous positions, get in and out on them and reset himself.

I do think he'll learn a lot from this fight and improve because of it. It was a gut check and he came through that element but didn't have enough in his arsenal to take the win but he now knows a lot of areas he needs to work on and he's a hard working lad so I'm sure he'll get back in the gym and look at those areas.

 

Patera is a solid European level fighter...no disgrace losing a competitive fight with him, though Ritson was being sold as the second coming. Some adjustments and he can win a rematch and learn a lot from this...

 

Harsh to write him off so soon. I admit, it was a worrying performance (lack of variety in punches, hurt from a "non-puncher") but plenty of fighters respond well and learn from a loss. Patera fought very well tbf, his uppercut was excellent.

 

Good assessment chatty.
Smigga was banging on about how good Lewis was at cutting off the ring, whilst it is your observation that is closer to the truth.
Lewis was cutting off the ring well early on but once his jab started to drop off so did his efficiency at cutting off the ring, which turned into just following patera around.
Maybe the jab dropping off and the effectiveness of how he cut off the ring ties in with the bodyshots he shipped in rd5.
Lewis was quite upfront about how he felt that bodyshot and how he was never the same after.
Perhaps that ties in with his jab dropping off and his effectiveness at cutting off the ring.

 

Not exposed at all.
Ritson looked beastly in the first 3-4 rnds imo.
The tactics were all wrong, he got too excited and gassed that's all.
The corner should have been telling him to calm right down after the first round. Everything should have come off that great jab, instead he tried to force the issue and allowed Patera to get into a groove.
A calm, stalking Ritson, hitting with stiff 2-3 punch combos off that jab, would have been too much for Patera imo.
Inexperience is all. I feel Ritson has a couple of levels left but Patera boxed out of his skin and only won a close decision...

 

No need to be so argumentative. I agree with you that a lot of people have overexaggerated about him and I warned of such myself in this thread (https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/ritson-crolla.609497/page-2) where people were saying he hammers the likes of Crolla and Burns. But realistically, Masher won a disputed split decision over Patera, whilst Ritson lost a deserved split. Patera also has a win and a loss to the decent Tatli and his only other loss is to Mendy, who is also decent. My point was that Ritson was stepping up from fighting British level to European level, it's not as though he was thrown in at the deep end the way, say, Callum Johnson was last week.

25 is not old in boxing these days, a lot of the top Eastern block fighters don't even turn pro until that age. Ritson is going to have to go back to the drawing board and improve his game. But I'm not prepared to totally rule out the possibility of his doing it. The two I mentioned earlier (Burns and Crolla) are good examples of fighters who took multiple losses at domestic level and went on to have very decent careers. It will all become clear anyway...

 

one defeat isn't enough to write him off.

 

Yeah the bodyshots had a major effect, you could notice him slumping at times and later was pushing his shorts down which is a giveaway that he's felt it to the body.

Overall it was a good fight for Ritson imo, it's the right step up even though he lost, he'll have learnt a bunch and improve from it, the rounds will be good for him, he'll improve his pacing and his conditioning will get better from it, just mentally knowing he can go the distance and gut it out helps and he now knows he can't just blow through everyone he faces.

It's back to the drawing board somewhat but he's young enough to hang around domestic and European level for a couple more years and see how much he improves from it.

Get him.on with some tough lads who can go the distance and build to a rematch later this year or early next year and see how he does then. It's not the type of defeat that will break him so I wouldn't worry about it too much if I was his team.