By Lee Collier
American Tim ‘Pitbull’ Coleman boxed in his first title fight back in December when he took on Greek-born, New York-based Mike Arnaoutis for the vacant USBA light-welterweight title. Coleman came away from Arnaoutis’s backyard with the belt after a close split decision win.
Coleman was happy with the win but felt things during the build-up and the fight could have gone better. “I am really happy with the win although the fight itself was pretty ugly,” enthused Coleman.
“I didn’t get much sparring for this fight. I got about 15-20[rounds] with Craig Watson and that was pretty much it. I was preparing for a right-hander before I found out about the Arnaoutis fight so I only had 3-4 weeks to prepare for it. I wasn’t totally happy with my overall performance and know I could have done a lot better if I had more sparring but all that matters is the win.”
Coleman’s win was viewed as controversial with many observers feeling the fight could have gone either way. Versus, who televised the fight, had Arnaoutis landing more punches and having a better connection rate yet Coleman still feels he did enough to win the fight.
“If you watch the fight without the commentators talking, which I did, and I always give close rounds to the other guy, (then) you’ll see I won the first five rounds,” claimed Coleman.
“Arnaoutis won some in the middle and I won the last two so I won at least seven of the 12 rounds so to me I clearly won the fight. A lot of Arnaoutis’s people at the fight thought I won the fight - it was up to the judges and I got the decision.”
Coleman has ambitions to fight for a world title but has just seen an IBF eliminator with Kendall Holt fall through. Until the 25-year-old American can get an eliminator or a title shot he intends to defend his USBA belt and is setting his targets high.
“I would love to defend my USBA belt against any fighter in the IBF top 15, it doesn’t matter who it is. I would love to fight Steve Forbes who says he wants to fight for my USBA belt. The fight I would really love is Victor Ortiz, he’s another southpaw or maybe Amir Khan,” revealed Coleman, who is 17-1-1 (4).
One attribute Coleman is not short of is confidence, as he explained. “I think if you’re a fighter and you don’t believe in yourself then it won’t happen for you and I’m confident of beating anyone who is put in front of me. I’m not backing down from anybody, you can’t be scared and if you lose it happens, you can’t be afraid of it,” he declared.
