Youri Kalenga Stops Denton Daley in 12th
By Lou Eisen (At ringside)
Saturday night was a very cold, frigid and windy Canadian winter night. However, the action inside the Hershey Centre was very hot from the first bout on. Thousands of fans flocked to their seats to watch Brampton, Ontario’s pride and joy, “Dangerous” Denton Daley, challenge France’s Youri Kalenga for his interim WBA cruiserweight world title. The crowd was full of a bevy of past and present Canadian boxing stars. George Chuvalo and Razor Ruddock were besieged all night long for autographs and photographs. Both of these Canadian boxing giants were happy to oblige their seemingly endless line of fans.
Shawn O’Sullivan was in attendance posing for many photos as well. Shortly after the card started, Troy “The Boss” Ross and his close friend, Adonis “Superman” Stevenson, the current reigning and defending WBC and Ring magazine light-heavyweight world champion, snuck into their seats. The crowd was primed and pumped up for the main event after watching an incredibly exciting undercard. This was an historic night for Canadian fight fans all across the country. It was the first time a Canadian pugilist was fighting for a world title on Canadian soil since Toronto’s Nicky Furlano fought Aaron Pryor for the IBF junior-welterweight title back at Varsity arena in 1984.
Daley and Kalenga put on a great fight, which kept the capacity crowd on their feet and enthralled from round one on. The fight was particularly notable for the ferocity with which each combatant fought. Both men landed crushing blows on each other without any let-up right to the very end of the fight. Both pugilists let it all hang out, holding nothing back in their mutual bids to emerge victorious from the ring. They brought out the very best in each other. Daley did Canada proud as he fought his heart out against the interim WBA cruiserweight champion Kalenga. Sadly, it was not to be. Daley reached for the moon but fell a few stars short of his goal. It was Daley’s first career defeat.
Daley would have most certainly triumphed over any other cruiserweight in the world tonight. Daley took Kalenga into the later rounds but came up against a warrior that refused to be denied. The crowd was utterly devastated when the fight came to an end in round 12. The sadness and silence, which enveloped the audience after the fight was stopped was quite palpable. Daley is immensely popular all over Canada. Many fans were openly weeping after the bout. Daley should be very proud of his performance. He no doubt gave the finest performance of his career.
Daley fought a great fight but it was just not his night and that happens sometimes in boxing at this level. There is no doubt that Daley will again challenge for a world cruiserweight title sometime in the near future. It would be a serious mistake to write Daley off. Daley will learn a lot from this bout, which will only serve to make him that much more formidable of a fighter down the road. It was a brutal, hard fought fight from the first round on, with both men brutally battling for every second of every round. Kalenga came exactly as advertised. He charged straight ahead in every round, throwing very hard shots to both the body and head of Daley. Kalenga also cut off the ring well even into the later rounds. Kalenga has what they call in boxing circles, “heavy hands,” which is what the boxing critics used to say about former IBF junior-middleweight world champion, Matthew Hilton.
Daley took the first round of the fight by smartly circling Kalenga while at the same time keeping the champ on the end of his jab. Kalenga threw and missed a lot of wild shots in the first few rounds and throughout the bout. Kalenga has a habit of telegraphing his shots, giving his foes advance notice of when his punches are about to arrive. Daley adroitly avoided Kalenga’s wild lunges by slipping and ducking under the champ’s looping shots. Kalenga went for a home run with every shot he threw. Both men tasted each other’s power early on.
Kalenga is incredibly strong. Even though he threw many punches “out the window,” a term used by Rocky Marciano’s trainer Charlie Goldman, to describe wild shots, Kalenga still did damage even when he didn’t catch Daley directly with a flush shot. Kalenga has a very short neck, which helped him to absorb Daley’s fast four punch combinations while still moving forward in the early rounds of the match.
In the early rounds, Daley took Kalenga’s shots well. In fact, Daley fought a smart fight. He followed the game plan to perfection. He constantly circled the champion, kept on his toes and scored well with his jab. In fact, Kalenga’s right eye started to swell noticeably by round four. Kalenga is prodigiously powerful and, managed to get very good leverage on his shots even though he mostly threw arm punches. Daley showed an incredible beard throughout the fight, taking some monster punches from Kalenga flush on the chin. Daley used his quicker hand speed and educated feet to land many good shots of his own, but Kalenga kept coming forward nonetheless.
Kalenga pressed hard in the first six rounds of the fight in an effort to score an early knockout. Kalenga was especially adept at cutting off the ring, while landing hard punches on Daley’s body, head and arms. Daley constantly fired back at Kalenga, and landed some huge shots of his own, which would have knocked out any other cruiserweight in the world. Kalenga took Daley’s shots well and was simply undeterred from his mission, even after Daley tagged him with some lightning quick four and five punch combos.
Kalenga missed as many shots as he landed. Daley had no trouble seeing, slipping and ducking under Kalenga’s wild swings. The frustrating thing for Daley and his ardent supporters in the crowd was that he followed his game plan to perfection. He did everything that his corner asked of him and he did it very well. Daley executed his fight strategy and fought the kind of fight necessary to beat Kalenga’s ring style. It should have worked.
Daley’s strategy was a sound one and specifically tailored to beat a guy like Kalenga and yet Daley did not walk away with the WBA belt. The consensus before the fight was that if Daley could take the bout into the later rounds, Kalenga would tire and start to lunge, thereby affording Daley the opportunity to catch him with counter right hands and right uppercuts. The more fatigued Kalenga became, so the theory went, the better were Daley’s chances of stopping him late.
The x-factor in the fight had to be Kalenga’s chin. Daley unloaded some heavy artillery on him throughout the bout but Kalenga took the shots well and kept coming forward, like a tidal wave reaching for the shore. By the same token, Daley took some hellacious shots that would have stopped other elite level cruiserweights early on.
The problem for Daley was that his strategy worked too well. He did use the perimeter of the ring and kept dancing and circling the champ for the first half of the fight. He stayed out of range of Kalenga’s power shots. However, in so doing, Daley put himself in a tough spot by being on the verge of conceding too many rounds to Kalenga in an effort to tire him out. This forced Daly to come down off of his toes and engage Kalenga at close quarters, which is where Kalenga is most comfortable.
The other determining factor in the fight was an accidental although still powerful head butt landed by Kalenga on Daley in the late rounds. It opened a cut over Daley’s left eye. Blood dripped into Daley’s left eye, impeding his vision for the rest of the way. Kalenga is not a guy you want to fight with only one good eye. The butt may have been accidental but it still adversely affected Daley’s eyesight. Kalenga led with his head all night but was never warned by the ref for doing so. Daley relies on his wits, technical skills, speed and field of vision to win his bouts. With his field of vision severely limited after the head butt, he was at a distinct disadvantage the rest of the way.
Kalenga’s nose was bleeding from round four on. By round five, Daley’s jabs were starting to close Kalenga’s right eye. Unperturbed, spitting blood from his mouth and bleeding profusely from his nose and with his eye quickly swelling up, Kalenga kept rolling along, landing thunderous shots on Daley whenever he caught him on the ropes. Kalenga used his shoulders to muscle Daley to the ropes and keep him there long enough to let his hands go. It would surely be remiss however, to not mention how well Daley was able to spin off the ropes time and time again and out of harm’s way, especially in the later rounds of the bout. Daley made Kalenga miss almost twice as many punches as he landed but in the end, it was not enough to turn the tide.
One would think that Kalenga would have suffered from arm fatigue or even a muscle pull from all of the wild punches he threw and missed. Unfortunately for Daley, that did not happen. Kalenga absorbed all of Daley’s power shots and still kept plodding forward. It wasn’t a case of Kalenga being a hard target to find, in fact, far from it. Daley had little to no trouble landing on Kalenga. Rather, the problem was that Kalenga, because of his short neck, squat body and thick thighs, was able to take Daley’s shots much better than most fans were led to believe. Daley’s blows would have knocked out any top cruiser in the world, except for Kalenga.
Kalenga did become tired early on and began breathing with his mouth open by round four. Both men were sucking wind in the later rounds because of the incredibly quick pace at which the fight was fought. In the later frames, Kalenga sported a huge welt under his right eye, which impaired his vision but did not deter his momentum. The champ had found his rhythm by round five. He seemed more relaxed and more comfortable from the fifth round on.
Daley certainly had his moments in round six, landing several good combos to the champion’s head. Daley was snapping Kalenga’s head back with fast, accurate, piston-like jabs. Kalenga won the first half of the round but Daley stormed back and won the last half of the round.
The rabidly pro Daley crowd screamed their leather lungs out watching Daley consistently take the fight to the champ in rounds six through ten. Daley had a tough decision to make in rounds seven and eight. Should he keep dancing and tiring out the champ or should he start to attack in earnest to try and pull even on the scorecards. Daley did not want to put himself in a hole by giving away too many rounds to the champ while hoping that Kalenga would eventually be too tuckered out to fight back in the last several rounds of the fight. That would have forced Daley to attack Kalenga in close, which is where the champ excels. It was a big gamble to take in a world title fight. Daley chose to do both. As we discuss this gambit here at our own leisure, it is worth noting that it was a decision that Daley had to make instantaneously in the fight in under a few seconds.
From rounds six to ten, Daley was landing his jab effectively and more often on Kalenga. He also began to come behind his jab with effective right crosses and usually capped off his combos with check left hooks. Kalenga, ever the implacable foe, took it all in, took a deep breath to suck in some air and went on the attack once again. In round 11, both men were exhausted but it was Kalenga who was landing the harder blows. Tired and unable to see well out of his left eye, Daley absorbed crunching blows from Kalenga yet still managed to stay on his feet and fire back.
Near the end of round eleven, Kalenga caught Daley with a brutal four-punch combination that sent Daley to the canvas. As referee Charlie Fitch started his count, Daley, to the utter astonishment of the crowd, managed to get to his feet. Kalenga went all out for a knockout, forcing Daley to cover up on the ropes. The fact that Daley made it to the bell to end round eleven is a testament to his will and his never-say-die fighting heart.
Both men came out and touched gloves at the start of the final round. Daley was still groggy from the punishment he took in the previous round. Kalenga was definitely gunning for the knockout. Once again he trapped an exhausted Daley on the ropes and fired away, dropping Daley to the mat with a left hand-right hook combination. Nary a fan in the arena thought in their heart of hearts that Daley would be able to rise from this knockdown yet, somehow, through a Herculean effort he managed to make it to his feet before the ten count was tolled. Kalenga came forward and seized the moment by landing a half dozen shots on Daley before the referee jumped in and stopped the fight at the 1:52 mark of round 12.
Some fighters can still win your heart even when they lose. Daley did that tonight. If there is such a thing as glory in defeat, and I believe there is, then Daley’s world title challenge will be long remembered and admired for years to come. Less than a week ago, on Nov. 11, Canada had its yearly Remembrance Day ceremonies to honor all of our glorious war dead from the past 200 years. How fitting that only four days later, Denton Daley gave his country one more glorious moment that will be long remembered in Canadian boxing annals. Daley served his country by doing his best. That is all you can ask of any man.