Petrucci Returns

By Peter Lerner at ringside: On Friday night in Rome, the undefeated Italian welterweight Daniele Petrucci had to overcome a rough and dogged effort – which included getting bitten on the shoulder in the eleventh round – from the useful and game Ronny McField from Nicaragua. He won by scores of 119-108 (twice) and 117-110.

In his first fight since May, Petrucci really had to grind out the win against the visitor. McField reaffirmed what he showed in his fight in December against another undefeated Italian, Leonard Bundu: this is a fighter who doesn’t like to follow scripts. To beat him you have to work hard all round every round. He’s not particularly special but he’s heavy-handed, hard and will really come on if there’s any lull in the action.

Petrucci may have won almost all the rounds but he had to earn each one. He wasn’t helped by not having the best build up to the fight. He only found out he was fighting McField about ten days before the fight, and he was originally due to fight a six rounder – which became an eight rounder and then a 12 rounder about a week before the fight when original headliner Vittorio Oi pulled out of the bill with a broken hand. There were also stories that Petrucci hadn’t been able to do any running for 20 days due to a training injury.

Nevertheless, there were moments of beautiful boxing, especially in the first half of the fight, and some of the Petrucci trademarks could be seen from time to time – the vicious left hooks to the body, the complete repertoire of punches, and that often perfect sense of distance and timing which, combined with a quite acute alertness, mean that opponents’ mistakes seldom go unpunished. In fact, apart from when Petrucci was briefly shaken by a left hook in the second round, he looked very good for the first five rounds.

After that his pace slowed. He was unable to maintain the same rhythm as before and his punches lost some of their previous authority. McField sensed this immediately, and from the sixth onwards he became bolder. The fight became scrappier as Petrucci, visibly taking deep breaths, resorted more to clinching and crowding his man. Just as in the last rounds of his points win over Jose Luis Cruz last May, it wasn’t pretty but it enabled the tiring Italian to keep a dangerous opponent under control.

The 11th round was different. Petrucci seemed to find a second gear – or maybe the pace was now getting to McField – and starting bouncing shots off McField’s head in rapid succession. The visitor seemed in trouble on the ropes and it was at this point that he resorted to chomping down on Petrucci’s shoulder – an act which cost him a point.

All in all it was not an easy night for Petrucci. This was one of those ‘banana skin’ type fights. Due to his time out of the ring, his less-than-satisfactory preparation for the bout and the ad hoc nature of the bill, Petrucci was coming in at somewhere less than his best. Yet he was still expected to win and would gain few plaudits if he did so, unless he got rid of his man spectacularly. The important thing was to get the win – and some rounds – in the bag. He is now 25-0-1 (9) while McField drops to 13-5-2 (10).

In the opening bout of the night, 23 year old welterweight Luigi Leonardi moved to 3-0-0 (2) with a third round stoppage against the peculiar Ivan Duvancic (now 0-6-1). I say peculiar because he looked fragile, scared and not particularly willing but every now and then planted his feet and doubled up the hook to body and head very nicely. Leonardi had him down four times in all – once in the second and three times in the third – before the referee waved it off. Leonardi is strong and aggressive. He’s particularly fond of going to the body. However, he does tend to telegraph his punches, usually by quite visibly dipping his shoulder and knee before throwing.

The other fight of the night saw touted junior middleweight Manuel Ernesti fight muscular dangerman Marijan Markovic. Ernesti is the last man to beat Nathan Cleverly – at an amateur tournament in Italy when the Welshman was apparently suffering from tonsilitis. He had his hands full with Markovic, an ex-kickboxer who had shown impressive power in stopping Alessio Domarin last year.

Ernesti is a tall, elegant switch-hitter. He’s a spiteful puncher, especially with the hook. In this fight he went on the attack straight away – and was almost made to pay. Markovic’s tactics were simple. He backed up, made himself small, set his feet and then looked to throw huge counters while Ernesti was unloading. They are not the type of tactics which win fights on points, but Markovic was not thinking about points – he was going for the jackpot. Time and again he landed looping rights when Ernesti stayed in range for too long. However, once it became clear that Ernesti could take those punches, and dish out more and better ones of his own, the result was never in doubt. Markovic, who frequently took walks around the ring before suddenly spinning round and charging, was too awkward and tough to stop. After six rounds the scores were 60-52, 59-53 and 59-54 (scores which included two points which were deducted from Markovic – once in the fourth for dangerous headwork, and once in the fifth for spitting his gumshield out).

Ernesti has the technical tools and power to go far but he must iron out the several faults he showed in this fight: a tendency to neglect the jab and square up when attacking; and a tendency to lean back from punches rather than block them. He I now 6-0-0 (3).

March 8, 2010