By Mesuli Zifo
He may possess a patchy fight record which dismisses him as a top fighter but William Gare once again proved how durable and cagey he is when he took unbeaten prospect and 10th rated Ring Magazine Thomas Oosthuizen to deep waters in their IBO super middleweight title clash at Emperors Palace in Johannesburg, South Africa last weekend.
Although Gare left the ring a loser on the judges’ scorecards, his reputation took a notch up as he clearly won the fight in the eyes of many ringsiders including this scribe.
In a fight reminiscent of the 2007 clash between Daniel Ponce de Leon vs Gerry Penalosa when the Filipino veteran was declared a loser when many ringsiders felt he clearly won as he landed far solid punches compared to De Leon’s flurry that only ended on the gloves, Gare chased, stalked and cornered the back pedaling Oosthuizen all night long landing better point-scoring punches.
The 23-year-old Oosthuizen whose lofty ranking by the supposedly respected Ring Magazine ahead of fighters such as Andre Dirrell, Allan Green, Kelly Pavlik, Librado Andrade, even a Peter Manfredo Jnr to mention just a few, proved just how much he still has to learn in the fight game despite the ridiculous scorecards such as the 117-111 and 119-110 which obviously gave him every benefit of the doubt of the closely contested rounds.
As boxingscene.com had alluded to in the fight preview, Gare was just brought in as an opponent for the house fighter whose path has already been planned as Oosthuizen’s promoter Rodney Berman revealed that the unbeaten southpaw would feature in a Lou DiBella card in US long before facing Gare.
As Gare left the ring he was mobbed by appreciating fans, applauding him for his gallant effort and actually telling him that he was the real winner of the bout.
“You can do all that and give a verdict to another fighter but you cannot fool the people because they know who the real winner is,” Gare said after the fight.
“I mean Oosthuizen was running all night long and did not want to fight besides his patty-potty shots which I had no problem blocking but they still gave him the fight.”
“I am not surprised because at 23 he is the investment than a 35-year-old like me.”
However Gare who suffered his 15th defeat in 42 bouts admitted that such influenced-losses are bad for his career which is winding down and will relegate him to the status of a gate keeper.
“People who never saw me fight, will look at my record and immediately deduce that I am a bum not knowing that many of these so called losses were manufactured,” he said.
Oosthuizen who moved to 15 victories against a single draw will need to work harder to convince detractors that he deserves to be rated among the top super middleweights in the world.