The Fight Site Boxing preview, June 4th to 7th: Kambosos/Haney, Inoue/Donaire, and more.
Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images
An absolutely sterling week this time around, with three top-class main events on the Saturday and then the rematch between Naoya Inoue and Nonito Donaire on (inexplicably) the Tuesday. Let’s dive in.
(author’s note: we’ll be focusing just on the main events here, simply because there’s so much going on that it wouldn’t be possible for me to cover those in the detail they deserve and dive into the undercards. So have a look at the schedules for the likes of David Morrell and Dalton Smith, but we won’t be getting into them here)
George Kambosos Jr vs Devin Haney
135lbs
Haney’s been plagued with accusations of picking his fights and being maneuvered softly till now, but with this one he’s taken a huge step to leaving those accusations behind, acceding to every demand team Kambosos made to put the fight together. His fight may therefore be complicated because neither his initial plan of coach- Ben Davison- nor his father got visas to travel to Kambosos’ home turf of Australia (late addition: as of this writing, it looks like Bill Haney might indeed make it to be ringside, though it’s not yet certain, or if he’ll have corner clearance if he does). Kambosos, meanwhile, is taking full advantage of the opening his shock win gave him, taking on one of the most dangerous opponents he could in his first defence rather than doing what many might have and taking a soft hometown defence or two. So both men deserve credit for getting this fight together.
As a matchup, it may be tempting to pick Kambosos, fresh off his big-punching, high-volume success over Lopez. But hey, it’s also tempting to suggest that Lopez played into Kambosos’ hands, coming at him hyper-aggressively all night long, so with Haney most likely playing a distance game, let’s go Haney decision. And in truth, this is a hard fight to pick - both entirely different outcomes are potentially in play here.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, for a Kambosos victory, he’ll need to be patient. He throws volume when he can, but he’s not really a pressure fighter- as mentioned, against Lopez his best moments came with his opponent coming at him, and even against fighters like Lee Selby and Mickey Bey, where despite winning comfortably he induitably looked less impressive than in his breakout performance, he spent much of the time trying to draw them to come forward and looked less comfortable on the occasions they didn’t. He’s unlikely to change that pattern too much here, and probably shouldn’t, so rather than expecting a hunter’s performance, expect him to sit at distance, holding position behind a jab but not fully engaging, until Haney has to step in himself to throw something. That’s the point where you’ll see the Australian step in himself and unleash the combinations. Since, in this scenario, he wouldn’t be forcing the tempo all of the time, to win he’ll need to pick his shots not just to land one but to get Haney off-balance so he can do damage with follow-ups, and keep him from disengaging safely. That isn’t to say he needs a knockout and can’t win a decision, but if he gets one it’ll be by consistently doing things that make a knockout quite likely.
Haney definitely has the bigger overall bag of skills than Kambosos, as well as advantages in both length and speed, so he’ll be looking to leverage those. That size advantage does mean it will be more difficult than usual for tKambo to work off his opponent’s jab, and Haney may well be fast enough that he can jab, follow it up and get out before Kambosos gets anything significant off. If that proves true, that’s the fight- Haney’s too good at moving for there to be a reliable chance of Kambosos cutting the ring off and chasing him down if that’s what it comes down to.
Where his biggest weakness lies is that even though in terms of his choices Haney knows exactly what he should be doing in the pocket and may well win a lot of exchanges in what should be his opponent’s wheelhouse, he simply doesn’t take punches very well. This is often put down as a chin issue and, well, ultimately there isn’t a huge practical difference and in any case a bad chin is often a result of bad balance anyway, but in Haney’s case it’s sometimes notable that even shots that clearly haven’t actually hurt him physically move him more than it seems like they should have. That is likely the result of some kind of balance issue - it’s not something immediately visible or always obvious, but something seems not to line up somewhere between his feet and his shoulders, leading him to be unable to move with shots as someone of his overall skill should be capable of. This shows in his punching power too - it’s not that uncommon for him to land a shot that moves him backwards more than it moves the opponent.
Against opponents landing one or two shots on him that’s bad enough, but as mentioned, if Kambosos does land it’ll likely be followed up on, and that’s where he could find himself really vulnerable, since taking a shot is even harder when you’re already off-balance.
So, ultimately, that’ll be the game- Haney will be looking to keep exchanges as short as possible- and may resort to just jabbing and keeping away, which would be an unfortunate spectacle but is something he has in his pocket- whereas Kambosos will be baiting the first move but then keeping things moving as long as possible. The advantage probably leans Haney’s way, since a lot of Kambosos’ best chance relies on the American making the wrong choices, but it’s a tight one to call.
Stephen Fulton Jr vs Danny Roman
122lbs
Haney and Kambosos might be the ones getting all the attention, but this one, at super-bantamweight, is just as good a fight. The 27 year old Fulton has quietly been building up both a resume and skillset that should make him a contender for p4p lists, and this fight will do nothing to hurt that call if he wins it, with Roman a former unified titlist with a very strong resume at the weight himself.
Fulton comes into this with probably the more rounded overall style, being comfortable at every range fighting backwards and forwards. That doesn’t mean Roman is one-dimensional, as he’s capable of working behind the jab and of working off the back foot if necessary - but he does definitely prefer to be in the trenches exchanging with his opponent, and one of the decisive factors in his narrow loss to Akhmadaliev back in 2020 was that he does get out of shape if his opponent can push him backwards entirely, at a pace not of his own choosing.
This means that while the intuitive pick might be to suggest that a fighter with good outfighting in his toolbox, as Fulton has, should use that and avoid engaging Roman at all, in reality what he’s likely to choose to do is keep that in his pocket as a safety valve, and instead engage Roman directly, trying to catch him with clean counters as he leans in and potentially trying to push him back to get him into a position to do real damage. After all, that’s what he did against Figueroa, and while Figueroa and Roman are not nearly identical, they’re both fighters who are by far at their best trucking it out in close.
That variety of options does mean the balance of probability probably leans Fulton’s way, but it is also the route to his biggest weakness, which is that while Fulton is excellent within every area of a fight, he can still sometimes be vulnerable moving between them. Thus, it probably wouldn’t be to his benefit to try to slip in and out of the pocket at will to keep Roman guessing, as that’s a good way for him to get caught -instead, he’s best served strategically choosing where to spend more significant portions of the fight. That does also mean that if Roman can catch Fulton out in close he’ll have opportunities if he tries to disengage- and equally, if Fulton tries to box at range but Roman manages to close distance, he’ll have a moment where Fulton is vulnerable while he re-adjusts to being in close. Whatever happens, it’s unlikely to stay at distance for too long, so keep an eye on this because it could be the war of the night.
Joe Cordina vs Kenichi Ogawa
130lbs
Cordina turned pro in 2017 and garnered some attention for showing a stylish, rounded skillset from early on, but the extent to which his career has meandered can be seen in the fact that he started fighting twelve rounders in 2018 - winning a British belt against Sean Dodd and adding then defending the Commonwealth title to that collection- but has only fought over 10 in the last three years, which contain four fights. This was partly covid, partly bad luck, partly taking time to adjust to a move down in weight, but whatever the reasons it’s fair to say that, at 30 years old, he needed something to kickstart his campaign at world level, so this is going to be a welcome chance for him.
In fairness, Ogawa’s career has been no less meandering. He first competed for a title back in 2017, initially beating Tevin Farmer, only to fail his pre-fight drugs test, resulting in a no contest and losing the belt. A draw in his most high-profile fight since then- for an Asia-Pacific title against Joe Noynay- and then the pandemic disrupted his route back to challenge for titles, but a late withdrawal by Shavkat Rakhimov saw him step in as a replacement opponent against Azinga Fuzile for the WBO 130lbs title, a chance he took handily as he dropped the South African three times on his way to a comprehensive victory.
Of the two, Cordina is most definitely the most technically complete, with a really sharp jab, solid combinations, a well-integrated defence and a willingness and ability to fight both backwards and forwards, but it’s a lot less proven whether he can put that all together at this sort of level. The biggest impediment may be that, even after moving down in weight, he is not at all a physical fighter, not just in power but really in the way he fights at all. He’s quick, but not exceedingly rapid, and in terms of strength he mostly tries not to engage in physical shoving at all if he can help it.
This’ll be an interesting combination of strength and weakness against Ogawa, an opponent whose approach is not subtle at all, but is garnished with some tricky timing. He doesn’t push relentlessly, spending a fair amount of time feinting and moving at distance to set up his moments, but when he goes, he goes hard, stepping in fast with big, looping shots to cut off escape and punish moments of inattention. His jab is good, but he mostly uses that as a power tool too, not much range-finding here. All in all, his aim is to make the space directly in front of him both a very unpleasant place to be and hard to escape once in it (which seems an obvious aim for boxing but it’s surprising how often that seems to be an incidental result rather than the actual tactical purpose of a fighter). It means that he’ll be the more limited of the two fighters on the level of what adjustments he can go to, but if he can consistently get the fight where he wants it, Cordina may just not have the athleticism to help him escape.
Cordina’s approach, then, is likely to need to involve controlling the tempo, using his jab a lot to keep Ogawa busy, then stepping in and out with sharp combinations before his opponent can get get the heavy artillery going. Since the champion is at his best when he’s moving forwards, if Cordina can engage and then vanish before letting him come forward, he’s got a good chance. If he can’t find the timing for that, though, he’s in for a long night. This is likely to be a good back-and-forth one.
Naoya Inoue vs Nonito Donaire
118lbs
Lastly, we have the biggest names of the whole week, when Naoya Inoue and Nonito Donaire face off in their rematch on Tuesday. Their first fight was notably superb, a high-level technical war, so the anticipation is high here, and concerns about Donaire’s age- perfectly founded- may be offset by the fact that Inoue’s schedule since the first fight has been genuinely embarrassing, with a fight against Jason Moloney that should have been the acceptable but unremarkable keep-busy fight for someone of his level being instead by far the best opponent he’s faced in the intervening two and a half years. So he may be the rustier of the two, since while Donaire’s opponents in the same time weren’t p4p challengers or anything, both were at least operating at world level.
The odds should still favour the Japanese fighter quite heavily, though. Although the first was a terrific contest, he did win it fairly definitely, starting to take over late and arguably deserving a finish when the referee first stepped in to stop him following up when a bodyshot clearly hurt Donaire, and then starting the count pretty late when he eventually went down (despite initial impressions, Donaire did in fact beat it, since the ringside official calling it out loud was a count ahead of the referee and despite frequent misunderstandings of long counts the rule is ‘when the referee counts ten’, not ten seconds specifically- but Donaire could have had no complaints if the ref had matched the timekeeper in starting his official count on two, a beat after he went down). It’ll be difficult for the older man to maintain the protection he kept up throughout the first, where he accepted taking shots to the head on the premise that he could rock with them and take the sting off to focus on protecting his body and keeping his hands low to disguise his counter shots better. It was a brilliant strategy on the night, but if it wasn’t enough then there isn’t a lot to do to improve on it, and any adjustments to it in terms of trying to land more of his own risk exposing his body to Inoue’s devastating work in that area much more quickly, whereas being more defensive just means he won’t be throwing enough to be in it. He could try to bait Inoue a bit more, to draw him even more onto the front foot where he can be a little open and over-reliant on pure reflex rather than defensive setup to avoid punishment, but with the speed disadvantage even that is risky. So expect a good fight, another very high-level one, but one where Inoue will ultimately make some big shots count.