Yes he moved the hips well when on the ropes, he slided out well and thankfully has got rid of the shoulder roll. He's seeing the shots coming, he's now accepting he can't just trade, sometimes you have to accept they will attack and sometimes you got to give ground and reset then come again..
Very good, used a bit more energy than he should have at times, but that will come with experience, overall he was very good, his feet was nearly always in a position to fire straight back when under attack, which shows good footwork, he has heart and a boxing brain, he's a good fighter.
To be fair it wasn't really testing on his defensive skills. Miranda was dangerous, but from slow loading up shots in close range. Haven't seen enough from Bellew that convinces me he can mix it at world level.
I disagree slightly. I thought the defensive work was spot on and the overall performance was excellent, as he dealt with Miranda in a composed, professional manner. However, the one slight thing for me was that although he was slipping & blocking punches nicely, he wasn't consistently getting into position to counter back. It improved later on when he committed to throwing more and when he did, he looked a lot more threatening IMO.
I see what your saying and you're right, the early rounds he was probably too defensive, he was wary of Miranda, which is understandable to a sense, he took a while to get going but when he found his range and grew into the fight, there was a significant improvement. As he rounds went on his positioning got better and better, which bodes well for the future imo.
I think he also knew Miranda was using a lot of energy, so he took some space and hoped it would pay off later.
I think his timing was off for the first 4 or 5 rounds. He was also using too much energy, probably down to nerves. Decent performance against a decent fighter. Well done tony. It was Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!!!
