By Craig Phillips: California’s Steve Luevano had Nicky Cook down five times before stopping his opponent in the 11th round to claim the vacant WBO featherweight title at the O2 Arena in London on Saturday night.
Going into the fight Cook was the slight betting favourite, fighting in front of his hometown fans it seemed he was destined to become champion tonight, but nobody handed the script to Luevano who had ideas of his own.
The first round shown that maybe Cook was a bit overawed by the occasion and he let Luevano settle into a moderate pace, more importantly he let Luevano fight his fight. In a tentative first session there wasn’t much from either fighter, but Cook failed to land a single significant punch.
In the second round things got worse for Cook, as he walked onto a straight left and was dropped to the floor. Cook was up before referee Dave Parris reached a count of eight but he looked unsteady on his legs and was looking to survive the round.
In round three Luevano established a good, snapping right hand lead, looking more and more comfortable with the task in hand. For Cook though the story of the night was becoming clear, he was not landing as many as he should have been and needed to step up a gear or two and take the fight to Luevano.
Rounds four and five followed the same pattern as Luevano again used the jab effectively, and beat Cook to the first punch at almost every available opportunity.
Round six was the first round I gave to Cook, and in retrospect it may have been more in kind rather than Cook earning it. It was a close round but Cook managed to get his opponent in the corner towards the end of the round and get a few body shots in, enough to win the round? On SecondsOut’s card it was.
We also had Cook taking rounds seven and eight and there was a real chance of a comeback as Cook put a few good one-two combinations together and looked to have more emphasis to his work. A left to the body at the end of round seven hurt Luevano and Cook could sense this.
Round nine started the same as Cook again used good one-two combos and he looked like he could be clawing his way back into the fight. A nasty cut opened up on the inside of Cook’s left eye and thing went from bad to worse when Luevano found a left to Cook’s body. Cook had no choice but to go down for an eight count. He was up at eight, but looked hurt, trying to hold on he was caught with another crippling left to the body at the end of the round which sent him down for another count. Again he rose, but he looked unsteady, the bell rang for the end of the round and Cook was saved. But would a minute be enough for the Englishman to regain his composure.
Cook was gifted a few more seconds to regroup in round ten, as Luevano had to go back to his corner to have some tape removed from his left glove. Cook knew it was now or never and really stepped up his work, landing a few shots flush on his opponent. They were both tired at the end of the round and as Cook came forward he went down; more from fatigue than Luevano’s shot, but still referee Dave Parris administered the count. Cook was up but in reality it was all over.
He came out for round eleven but Luevano found his body again with a big left uppercut, which sent Cook down to the floor on all fours. As the referee counted, Cook’s trainer and father Paul Cook waved the fight off.
There wasn’t much known about Luevano going into the fight, but he showed the fans why he was the WBO’s number one challenger for the title with a classy display, that earned him his first World Championship. He now stands at 33-1 (15) and promoter Bob Arum could line up for some big fights for his man soon.
For Cook it was his first taste of defeat as a professional, and a second World Title heartache in eight month’s after Scott Harrison withdrew from his previous scheduled World title fight in December with one days notice. Cook must go back to the drawing board, asses what went wrong and launch another assault towards World honours.
Earlier in the night Leicester’s Martin Concepcion stopped Manchester’s Matthew Hall in the first round of their light middleweight clash on the card. Hall was returning after a layoff of over a year, and came in as replacement for stablemate Thomas McDonagh who was supposed to box Concepcion in May.
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