SALANDY RETAINS TITLES
...beats Poland's Lukasik by unanimous decision
Ian Prescott iprescott@trinidadexpress.comMonday, March 31st 2008
SALANDY STRIKES: Poland's Karolina Lukasik, right, grimaces after Trinidad and Tobago's Jizelle Salandy drops a right cross to her jaw during Saturday night's world title fight at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya. Salandy won on a unaminous points decision. -Photo: Curtis Chase
KAROLINA LUKASIK shed tears in her dressing room after it was announced that Trinidad and Tobago's Jizelle Salandy had won their junior-middleweight multiple world-title fight by a unanimous points decision on Saturday night at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya.
After narrowly winning her toughest bout, Salandy (16-0) now has among her eight titles the WBA, WBC, WIBA, WIBF, IWBF, and GBU junior-middleweight crowns. Lukasik of Poland was suffering her first defeat in ten matches.
Judges George St Aude, Will Boodoo and Octavio Rodriguez all saw Salandy winning 97-94. The fight, though, was much closer than the three-point spread suggested and could have gone either way.
Afterwards, Salandy was elated, boasting of setting a world record with her night's haul of belts.
Panamanian Hector Roca, who trained the likes of Arturo "Thunder" Gatti, Hector "Macho" Camacho and Bobby McGirth to world titles, also prepared Salandy. He was happy with his charge's victory on the night when he also celebrated his birthday. He agreed that it was a tough fight.
"Well, the fight was very close, but Jizelle got it on points, because the girl was only looking for the knockout punch," Roca declared, referring to Lukasik. "She's (Salandy) a great fighter and she is going to get better."
However, Lukasik's trainer, Conmy Mittermeier, was livid, threatening to register an official protest and vehemently declaring that his fighter had won.
"Anyone could have seen that Karolina won this fight. Karolina won the fight by so," he said, indicating a clear margin.
"Salandy just ran around the ring, while my fighter landed clean punches," added Mittermeier.
The big fight brought out a wide cross-section of spectators and the largest boxing crowd in years. Among those present were Members of Parliament Donna Cox, Peter Taylor, Roodal Moonilal, Jack Warner and Winston "Gypsy" Peters; ex-Minister Joan Yuille-Williams; former Olympic gold medallist Hasely Crawford; ex-WBC lightweight champion Claude Noel, T&T's first world champ; businessman Richard Fakoory; and David Muhammad, manager of the Trinidad and Tobago national football team.
Salandy probably did win the fight fairly, but only by the slimmest of margins. The bout certainly was not action-packed and neither boxer landed many punches for most of the rounds.
Showing improved technique since her month-long stint with world-renowned Roca, Salandy was far quicker than her opponent. Skilfully dodging most of the Pole's punches, Salandy circled on the outside for much of the fight, but had trouble getting past the long reach of southpaw Lukasik.
The slower Polish fighter stalked early, but missed a lot of punches, while Salandy stuck the occasional jab into the taller fighter's mid-section.
Salandy appeared to pick up rounds six and seven after abandoning caution and jumping all over Lukasik. But, she suffered a setback in the eighth when referee Tommy Thomas took a point away and in the ninth Lukasik appeared to marginally pip another close round.
Salandy pounded Lukasik for the first minute of the tenth round and appeared to win that.
Roca seemed to have thought that the fight was much closer than the judges and openly chided referee Thomas for the deducted point.
The deduction came after Salandy reacted to Lukasik's constant rough play by angrily bobbing her head, which was being forcibly pinned down by the Polish fighter. Although there was no obvious head-butt, Thomas took away the point without giving Salandy a prior warning.
The night's other fights saw Kevin Placide winning over Guyanese Denny Dalton after a bizarre eighth round disqualification, while Bajan Sean Cox and Guyanese Shawn Corbin won impressively by knockout over Leon Gilkes (Guyana) and Tomas Orozco (Colombia), respectively.
