Day of Reckoning, our pre-Christmas boxing bonanza, was a succession of surprises. Outstanding performances and shock results scuppered future plans, reputations were upheld and destroyed, and the tedious production choices of past Saudi cards were, thankfully, streamlined. An unmitigated success then, except for those poor defeated souls.
Day of Reckoning: Hrgovic Underwhelms with Round 1 KO
Filip Hrgovic battered Mark De Mori with a succession of right hands to halt the tiny Australian in the opening round. De Mori’s stature, nervousness, and that he was thought unworthy for David Haye’s heavyweight return all the way back in 2016, undermined the big Croat’s win. As did the clean, overhand swing he landed on Hrgovic shortly before the finishing barrage. He’s uninspiring, Hrgovic, but he keeps winning, and his disputed win against Zhilei Zhang in 2022 has aged well. HIs rank with the IBF will grant him a mandatory title shot sooner or later. He seems content to wait for it.
Day of Reckoning: Sanchez Fa and Away the Bigger Puncher
Frank Sanchez finished the underrated Junior Fa in seven rounds. He dropped the Kiwi to his knees with a jolting right hand in the sixth. Fa rose bravely and was rewarded by the sound of the round-end bell soon after. But Sanchez stormed him in the seventh. The same right hand, and the wind from the following uppercuts, sent Fa over again with two minutes still to go. Fa, again, nose bloody and breathing heavily, stood up. The finish didn’t take long. Sanchez led with a hook, camouflaging another crunching right with thirty seconds to go, crumpling Fa in the corner. Referee Kevin Parker rightly waved away the count.
His Day of Reckoning performance showed Sanchez was explosive and timed his punches well. Like his super-middleweight compatriot David Morrell, he is not the backfoot counter-puncher his native Cuba so often produces. He is aggressive, hitting fast and hard. But there is a stiffness in his legs and a weathering on his face that makes one wonder how long he has left, even at his official age of 31.
Day of Reckoning: Kabayel Tames ‘The Lion’
Former EBU Heavyweight champion Agit Kabayel refused to be used as fodder for the Russian ‘Lion’, Arslanbek Makhmudov. With a rare appearance outside of Germany, Kabayel deftly dampened Makhmudov’s pawing attempts, countering over slow leads and surgically attacking the body. He brought the monstrous Russian down with two beautiful uppercuts and a left hook downstairs in the third, and blasted away at the ribs and sternum to finish the job in the fourth. Kabayel looked a class above Makhmudov who was lucky he didn’t prompt the referee to end the contest earlier with his worrying, perhaps subconscious, habit of shaking his head while distressed.
Makhmudov was 18-0 with 17 KO’s coming into this fight with some recognisable, if unambitious, names on his record. He also looks like he emerged whole from the Russian tundra ready to feast on flesh. He is, in short, a very marketable asset. It seems unlikely that Kabayel, with his less impressive knockout percentage and habit of fighting once a year in obscure German venues, was supposed to win at Day of Reckoning. But he dismantled Makhmudov with impressive precision and calmness on a huge global stage. At a somewhat more believable 31-years-old and now with a 24-0 record (16 KO’s) he could have some big opportunities in his future.
Day of Reckoning: Ruthless Opetaia
If Jai Opetaia relinquished his IBF cruiserweight title to appear at Day of Reckoning, he retained his reputation as a destructive force. The UK’s Ellis Zorro, 17-0 and given the chance of a lifetime, merely existed in the same space as Opetaia until the ten-second clacker. At which point Opetaia feinted with a short right to the body. It was enough to freeze Zorro long enough for the following left to pound against his jaw, sending him flying, his head bouncing on the bottom rope in Watsonian fashion. The way Opetaia sauntered above Zorro’s unconscious body suggested he wanted him to get up so he could knock him down again. He has an appetite for destruction, this one. At the time of writing Zorro is not reported to have suffered any lasting damage.
Day of Reckoning: Dubois Blossoms in Brutal Contest
There are few things more satisfying than seeing somebody realise their potential. Daniel Dubois walked to the ring on Saturday night with a brace of damaging defeats on his ledger, one of them suffered only four months ago. His opponent Jarrell Miller, the loud-mouthed, undefeated American with a backlog of performance enhancers undoubtedly retained in his fleshy rolls, seemed a foolhardy proposition for a young man potentially low on confidence.
But Dubois boxed beautifully. Over ten rounds he remained fleet-footed, displayed a previously unseen endurance, and looked for the finish every step of the way. Sweat sprayed from both fighters when they landed their big swings, a frightfully common occurrence. Miller, slow but intractable, rallied in the middle rounds. He pushed forward with his ungodly mass to find sneaky counters, catching and slipping many, but taking plenty. He was everything that should have disheartened Dubois. Well, the old Dubois.
‘Dynamite’ stayed composed, landed rapid hooks to head and body and showed a dextrous, fast jab throughout. He overcame Miller’s charge and steadily tilted the contest in his favour. He finished the fight in the final moments with a barrage Ray Mercer would have been proud of. It was the perfect conclusion to a complete performance.
On Saturday night Dubois became something else. Something more. Should he retain the confidence from this win against more agile, quicker opponents, he may yet realise the potential his handlers have long touted. He and his team will surely look back on Day of Reckoning as a major development in his young career.
Day of Reckoning: Bivol Outclasses Arthur
Dmitry Bivol sublimely outpointed Lyndon Arthur over twelve rounds to retain his undefeated record and light-heavyweight titles. Bivol often controls distance in a way that is difficult to comprehend. He slides his lead foot in and out by inches. He feints with every part of his body. His lead left is a beguiling wand, measuring, gauging, initiating, countering. He allowed the circumspect Arthur few opportunities, pouring on long combinations to head and body, always ready to slide back or block any retaliatory blows.
In the eleventh another brutal monologue, punctuated by a rib-shifting left hook, brought Arthur to his knees. Arthur rose and found one or two responses but by the end, appeared grateful to hear the final bell. Day of Reckoning may have been the last time we see him on the grand stage. Bivol was imperious. If he and Beterbiev do not face each other in the near future it would be a tragedy. Which brings us to. . .
Day of Reckoning: Parker Pounces – Wilder Wilts
Having Andy Lee in your corner, a man who has prepared for Deontay Wilder several times, is a luxury few fighters have ever had. That being said, Parker still needed to negate the a nuclear right hand and overcome the uncommon doggedness Wilder has repeatedly shown.
Parker fought perfectly, refusing to linger in the middle distance where he would be most endangered. He closed the gap on Wilder with sweeping overhands, keeping his head low and off centre. Still, Wilder caught him with the kind of short, hydraulic blows that have so often rendered their recipients incoherent. Parker, while consciously taking every extra Newton away from these punches, still absorbed and overcame some hellacious blows. At times he looked certain to get Wilder out of there, viciously charging when he judged the moment right. But ‘The Bronze Bomber’ agains showed the guts and toughness so commonly lacking in destructive punchers.
Here, he was unusually thin, expectedly off-balance, and never thought of quitting. He lifted his glove at the final bell surely knowing he’d been beaten. Parker was typically understated in the immediate aftermath. He elevated his standing just fifteen months after being beaten senseless by Joe Joyce. What a difference a year makes.
Day of Reckoning was an appetiser, a teaser for Wilder reportedly signing a two-fight deal with Anthony Joshua scheduled for 2024. Those fights depended on victory here. Whether AJ – Wilder still happens is still uncertain. Deontay may or may not retire. But he might feel more optimistic when a guarantee of several million dollars is presented to him. Should he retire, time will be kind to him. For all of his deficiencies, he has been one of the scariest propositions in the heavyweight division for the better part of a decade. That has to count for something.
Day of Reckoning: Pre-Ruiz AJ Returns
The Anthony Joshua commercial machine has thundered along at full speed since he put his dramatic feud with Dilian Whyte to bed with an uppercut for the ages. His subsequent run, peaking with a glorious Wembley win over Wladimir Klitschko, was proper heavyweight champion stuff.
However, losing to Ruiz before tentatively winning the rematch, then failing twice against Usyk, left AJ floundering. Claiming two clear but unconvincing victories over Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius, and a restless desire to switch trainers, left AJ’s status and position in the heavyweight division unclear as Day of Reckoning approached.
On Saturday night Anthony Joshua was imperious against Otto Wallin. He was loose, light-footed, decisive. His jab was a white flash that quickly bloodied Otto Wallin’s nose. The pull-right hand was an oft-deployed, frighteningly effective weapon, and he followed it with a left hook in the fifth that sent Wallin several feet across the ring, though somehow still upright. The way he pursued Wallin for the remainder of the session was a cold display of dominance. Wallin and his corner made the right decision to stay seated before the sixth.
More impressive than Joshua’s speed, punch selection, and footwork, was his demeanour. Wallin’s punches did not make him flinch. He exploded in and out of his attacks, accelerating and decelerating as needed, entirely relaxed. He recovered the flow-state athletes so often talk about and proved that, despite the best-laid contracts between himself and Wilder, he was, at least on this night, a far superior operator than the Alabaman.
Day of Reckoning: Conclusion
Day of Reckoning proved that whatever plans boxing’s powers concoct, well-prepared, ambitious fighters, can upend them, however temporarily. It is a compliment to the matchmakers on this card that there were a handful of upsets and only one squash match. It’s a convoluted set-up out there but the Matchmaker(s) deserve an awful lot of credit. It’s rare to see such a well-matched, stacked PPV card from beginning to end. As far as appetizers go, it was delectable.
