Boxing Challenge-Smith decisions Holzken

Photo Credit: World Boxing Super Series

The World Boxing Super Series semi-finals ended as softly as its beginning was exciting as the Super Middleweight completed the final matchup as second seed Callum Smith won a dominant but less than exciting unanimous decision over late replacement and kickboxing champion Nicky Holzken in Nuremberg Germany.

It could have been far worse, Holzken came forward and tried to win, but the massive gap in experience and skill was far too much for the Dutch native to overcome.
Holzken fought better than expected and he brought up some memories of seeing some PKA Karate stars of the 1980's (I watched that on ESPN) such as Dale "Apollo" Cook struggle against low level competition in their boxing attempts.
The karate/kickboxers that attempt to make the leap in boxing never seem to have the ability to punch hard and Holzken actually was better with his punches than I expected, but he is simply starting far too late in the sport.
Callum Smith was certainly fighting a safer fight than I expected against the late substitute and would have been better suited to hit the gas to finish this fight strongly, but in tournament action, the win is the most important thing and Smith won going away on my card 118-110.

One final note on a fight that won't be especially memorable for many (including a crowd that was less than enthralled by both the action and the absence of hometown fighter Jurgen Braehmer), but is the most interesting on a dull night, Watching the post-fight "staredown" between the two finalists-Callum Smith just seems so much larger than George Groves and I didn't expect that.
Considering how much the rangy Smith used the jab to fend off the novice Holzken, it'll be interesting to see if Smith can do the same against the experienced and crafty Groves.
Groves used his jab well to neutralize much of the offense of the taller Chris Eubank Jr so it will be key for Groves to do the same to Callum Smith.

The tournament for the super middleweights didn't look as strong as the cruiserweights from the start and the bracket looked highly likely to be an all UK-battle in the finals with Callum Smith favored in his part of the tourney and the winner of Groves-Eubank to fill the other slot.
The WBSS needs to have better fighters on standby than the likes of Nicky Holzken for future emergency situations but as Burt Reynolds uttered in the underrated comedy "Breaking In"- "we learn by doing" and hopefully a lesson has been learned by the dull fight, silent crowd and amount of no-shows for the next time that this situation comes into play.

Still have the Superfly card and a few words on tonight's retirement of Patrik Elias to write tonight as well.