Urango proved all wrong for Ngoudjo
The deck seemed stacked in Herman Ngoudjo's favor: hometown fan support, a familiar ring and a one-dimensional opponent. So how is it that Juan Urango left the building with a junior welterweight title, while Ngoudjo was left to pick up the pieces?
MONTREAL --- The trace of a smile was still there whenever the television cameras came near, but by the 11th round at the Bell Centre on Friday, the face of the normally debonair promoter Yvon Michel bore the expression of a presidential candidate already mentally composing his concession speech.
Thanks to a couple of third-round knockdowns, Juan Urango had staked himself a huge early lead. It had been apparent for some time that the only chance of the IBF 140-pound belt staying in Canada might come if Urango got tired of chasing Herman Ngoudjo around the ring and collapsed from exhaustion.
Andre Huard, the timekeeper assigned by the Quebec commission, did his level best to effect this eventuality by overseeing a 10th round that lasted 5 minutes and 23 seconds, but when it ended with the Colombian still on his feet and marching forward, it was clear there were going to be no last-minute reprieves from the officials for Team Michel on this night.
The battle for the title vacated by Paulie Malignaggi had loomed as a chess match between Urango's power and Ngoudjo's speed and slickness, but the former didn't take long to assert itself in forming the tone of the fight.
Urango's style is so uncomplicated that it verges on one-dimensional. He came out of the corner looking a bit like Frankenstein's monster, striding purposefully at Ngoudjo, throwing enough punches that some of them were bound to land.
On this night at least, Ngoudjo had neither the firepower to discourage him nor the elusiveness to get out of the way.
In the third round, Urango unleashed an ungainly left uppercut that landed on Ngoudjo's chin and sent him sprawling to the canvas. The punch appeared to catch the Cameroonian slightly off balance, but whether he was hit hard or not, he certainly went down hard. Then, before the round was out, Urango caught Ngoudjo again, this time with a straight left followed by a right hook that put him down for the second time.
Days before the fight, Urango had distilled his game plan down to a one-word description -- pressure -- which proved to be accurate. Ngoudjo, to his credit, was able to enact his own pre-fight strategy more effectively as the bout went on, but he never seemed in danger of overcoming the three-point deficit resulting from the third round.
In regaining the championship he lost to Ricky Hatton two years ago, Urango (now 21-1) won handily on all three scorecards. The win was not as one-sided as the scorecard of American judge Robert Hoyle (120-106) made it out to be; nor, probably, was it as competitive as the 116-110 card Canadian judge Pasquale Procopio suggested. (The third arbiter, Floridian Richard Green, split the difference, returning a 118-108 verdict.)
The puzzling assignment of referee Marlon Wright to Urango-Ngoudjo turned out to be a non-factor.
In November, Wright had found himself the center of controversy with his handling of the final moments of another title fight at the Bell Centre, and the decision to reward him with this fight seemed to be an in-your-face gesture. What was not as clear was in whose face it was meant to be.
Lucian Bute, whose championship had been preserved by Wright's decision to count slowly instead of count him out in the waning seconds of his Oct. 25 bout against Librado Andrade, was the hometown fighter, as was Ngoudjo in this one. On the other hand, Ngoudjo's trainer, Howard Grant, was in the Andrade corner on the night in question and reflected his displeasure with Wright's work by angrily shoving the referee just after the final bell saved Bute.
Three days before Ngoudjo would face Urango, the Quebec Commission upheld its earlier suspension of Howard Grant. He was replaced in the corner by his brother, former super middleweight titleholder Otis Grant. Ngoudjo may have missed the familiar voice in the corner, but it would be a stretch to suggest that it was a factor in the outcome.
The Evangelista Cotto-trained Urango might not have earned himself a place on the dance card of the Ricky Hatton-Manny Pacquiao winner with his resurgent performance, but matching the new IBF champion against, say, the April 4 winner between Timothy Bradley and Kendall Holt wouldn't be out of place.
Ngoudjo (17-3), meanwhile, goes back to the drawing board after another enigmatic performance. He has at times been dazzling, as in his split-decision loss to Jose Luis Castillo in 2007 and even in his loss to Maliganaggi in Atlantic City in '08, but this time, with the playing field seemingly tilted in his favor -- he was fighting on his own home court before a building full of his fans and facing an opponent utterly devoid of mystery -- he was simply outclassed. Where he goes from here is anybody's guess.
George Kimball, who writes for the Irish Times and Boxing Digest as well as ESPN.com, won the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism in 1985. He is the author of the widely acclaimed new book "Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing."
