By Jake Donovan
The latest edition of ESPN2 Friday Night Fights was supposed to be about fresh starts for Eromosele Albert and James McGirt Jr, both of whom saw their careers suffer devastating setbacks last year.
It was mission accomplished for Albert, who dominated late substitute Germaine Sanders en route to a ten-round shutout. Not so much for McGirt Jr., who allowed himself to be outworked by pudgy career junior middleweight Angel Hernandez in dropping a close unanimous decision.
The show aired live from Mallory Square in Key West, Florida.
When the telecast was first booked, Albert was slated to face former welterweight titlist Carlos Quintana in what would’ve served as a must-win scenario for both fighters. Quintana enjoyed the best and worst moments of his career in consecutive fights in 2008, scoring a shocking win over previously unbeaten Paul Williams, before getting starched in one round just over three months later.
His chance at a career revival will have to come another day; injuries suffered in training camp forced the Puerto Rican off the show, leaving promoters to scramble for a replacement before settling on Sanders earlier this week.
They’d have almost been better off scrapping the main event altogether, if not for the fact that Albert was so badly in need of a win.
To his credit, Albert was a professional throughout the night, delivering a complete performance from beginning to end. He was effective with his jab and left hook to the body early on, while Sanders couldn’t – or perhaps wouldn’t get anything going, spending much of the fight looking like a blown-up welterweight who accepted assignment on very late notice.
The first two rounds were virtual carbon copies of each other – Albert throwing non-stop, and Sanders staying the hell away with little in the way of return fire. Sanders stood his ground a little more in the third, throwing when it became an inside fight. Albert’s activity level was still too much for the soon-to-be 39 year old Sanders to contend with, though things at least better resembled an actual fight.
Optimism for a competitive fight didn’t last very long; Albert regained control in the fourth, working largely behind the jab and also nailing Sanders to the body on several occasions. A double left-hook, one up top followed by another to the ribs caused Sanders to double-step toward rounds end.
The effective body attack from the prior round was carried over into the fifth. Albert opened up the frame with a straight right to Sanders’ midsection, causing him to momentarily freeze up as he winced in pain. By this point, it was clear that Sanders had no intention of winning the fight, darting around the ring with his only goal to last the ten-round distance.
To his credit, Albert danced as hard as he could to prevent the journeyman from hearing the final bell.
Rounds six and seven saw an increase in his intensity level, throwing punches with mean intentions rather than just for the sake of throwing.
After spending most of the fight darting around the ring, Sanders decided to give fighting a try in the eighth. It nearly proved to be disastrous. Albert unloaded with a three punch combo upstairs, with a right uppercut snapping back Sanders’ head. It was enough to once again send Sanders running, though Albert was effective in cutting off the ring and getting off his punches.
Rounds nine and ten featured more of the same. Albert came to put on a show, while Sanders… didn’t. Sanders’ limited goal of going the full thirty minutes almost fell short, when a sustained body attack had him badly hurt in the final round. Instead, Albert had to settle for a brutally one-sided round in closing the fight strong.
Their efforts were properly reflected on the scorecards, with Albert sweeping on all three scorecards by final tallies of 100-90.
Albert improves to 22-2-1 (10KO) with the win, his first in almost 18 months. The two-time Nigerian Olympian saw his career cruising along until a disastrous 2008, in which he suffered a first-round knockout against James Kirkland on HBO. Even less forgiving was his shocking and disappointing draw against Ossie Duran last October, though the ship appears to be righted for the moment.
For Sanders, it could – or at least should – be the end of the road. Even in accepting the fight as a late substitute for Carlos Quintana, his performance bordered on his purse deserving to be withheld. The loss is his fourth straight as he falls to 27-7 (17KO).
Plenty of prospects were made to look suspect on ESPN2 in 2008. Following that trend comes The Deuce’s first entry for 2009 Upset of the Year, as Angel Hernandez took a close unanimous decision over James McGirt Jr. in the televised co-feature.
Hernandez was never a body-beautiful fighter, but his physique for this fight suggested he enjoyed the holidays way too much. By comparison alone, McGirt Jr. looked camera ready.
But being in shape and being in boxing shape are two different matters entirely.
The first couple of rounds saw McGirt Jr. fight from the outside, and forcing Hernandez to ineffectively plod forward. McGrit repeatedly scored with his right hook, even more so when he doubled up on, to the body and then up top. Hernandez picked up steam at the end of the opening round, but was a bit overzealous in his attack; excessive holding and hitting drew a warning from referee Telis Assemenios.
Things got off to a much better start for Hernandez in the third. McGirt Jr. was unprepared for the immediate bulrush, and was forced into a clinch. A double right-hook combo to the body and head landed for McGirt Jr. when action resumed, though Hernandez was firing back rather than riding out the storm. His momentum was momentarily slowed toward rounds end when he drew a second warning for holding behind the back of McGirt Jr’s head.
Having spent way too much on the inside in the third, McGirt Jr. went back to fighting from the outside in the fourth. Hernandez still smothered his taller foe whenever given the chance, but McGirt Jr. was now better prepared. Body shots almost always allowed the transplanted New Yorker to punch his way out of an inside fight and re-establish his desired distance.
A right hand opened up opportunities galore for Hernandez in the fifth. McGirt Jr. was suddenly unable to get out of the way of Hernandez’ punches, included left hooks upstairs that seemed to bother the much bigger fighter. There was plenty of two-way action in the round, but the biggest difference being that McGirt Jr. was clearly bothered by the incoming, while Hernandez walked through the best his opponent had to offer during such sequences.
Despite drawing blood from Hernandez late in the sixth, the fight began to slip away from McGirt Jr. in the middle rounds. Round six was a close affair, with McGirt Jr. offering a shoeshine down the stretch, enough to barely take the round as well as open a cut over the left eye of Hernandez. The seventh and eighth rounds were a completely different story. Hernandez buried his head on McGirt Jr’s chest for much of the round, smothering his punches while getting off his own slaps.
McGirt Jr. regained control in the ninth, which appeared to be just in time to save the fight. Hernandez gave it the old college try in the tenth and final round, but his efforts featured far more aggression than anything in the way of effectiveness. McGirt Jr. never quite solved the riddle, but did enough to avoid anything dramatic from occurring.
At least until the final scores were announced.
First came the score of 95-95, to which McGirt Jr. expressed surprise that it wasn’t a unanimous decision. A scoring correction of 96-95 would make it unanimous moments later – just not in the direction Tea McGirt expected. The next two scores of 96-94 went to Hernandez, who improves to 29-7 (16KO) with the win.
Hernandez is at the point in his career where any win will be an upset. It most certainly qualifies here, as he pulls this out seven months after being shut out by promising junior middleweight prospect Vanes Martirosyan.
McGirt Jr. is at the point in his career where fights like this should serve as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks. He is instead now up poop’s creek, sans paddle.
The loss drops him to 1-2-1 over his last four fights as he falls to 19-1-1 (9KO) overall. A disappointing draw to Marcus Upshaw last October resulted in his fighting his way off of what would’ve been an undercard appearance on Saturday’s HBO telecast. Friday night’s loss could very well send him all the way to the bottom of the queue.
Junior middleweight newcomer Marcus Willis (2-0-1, 1KO) opened up the show with a four-round shutout over Omar Brown (1-2, 0KO). Willis scored a second round knockdown courtesy of a left hook and dominated the bout en route to a clean sweep on all three scorecards. The bout seemed to air for no other reason than to ensure that the telecast would run beyond its intended two-hour time slot.
Jake Donovan is a voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Comments/questions can be submitted to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com .
