Beaten on points, Lyndon Arthur surprised heavy favourite Anthony Yarde by not only retaining his British commonwealth light-heavyweight title, but also adding the vacant WBO inter-continental title too.
With both boxers claiming themselves as the winner and confirming they were happy for a rematch, Yarde was bemused when the scorecards were revealed and Arthur was declared the winner after jabbing his way to victory, via a split decision: 111-117, 115-114, 115-114.
The first half of the fight
29-year-old Arthur, in the pre-fight promos, claimed that if he won against Yarde this was proof that he could become world champion within his next three fights. Although this wasn’t an easy win for Arthur, he did himself proud, beating Yarde primarily one-handed, while nursing a suspected injured right arm. This suspected injury meant that Arthur wasn’t able to use his right arm much throughout the fight, giving Yarde the advantage.
In the early stages of the fight Yarde seemed measured and cagey, which was to be expected given he fell short at world level in his fight against the then WBO light-heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in Russia. While he did win by TKO twice in 2020, fighting Arthur was clearly a significant step-up in the level of competition and the fact that there were two titles on the line added extra pressure. In the final round Yarde gave it everything he had, landing punches which did cause Arthur to wobble slightly. But sadly, it wasn’t enough to beat the ‘King’.
Arthur, who wasn’t exactly fancied by critics and was ranked at #6 by WHO, started the fight as he meant to go on, controlling the pace with his jabs. While Yarde controlled the centre ring early, Arthur continued to hit him with counterpunches
The slow pace of the fight worked to Arthur’s advantage who looked comfortable throughout, staying on the outside and picking his punches at a good distance. Yarde tried to break Arthur down by delivering a few body shots, but he was unable to close the distance between the two fighters for any sustained period of time. Entering into round four, Arthur, the defending champion promoted by Pat Barrett, it seemed was already three rounds up. Barrett stressed the importance of not getting lazy or resting on his laurels, expecting Yarde would increase his pace in the fourth round. He was right. As the tempo of the fight increased the sound of Ajayi’s shouting “there you go” injected more bounce into Yarde’s step. This encouragement for Yarde’s fans was short-lived.
In rounds five and six, Yarde tried to dominate, landing body shots and attempting to set-up an overhand right, but the display was frustrating to watch as the intensity of Yarde’s shots was at best, inconsistent. All the time Arthur was continuing to land jabs. Yarde attempted to gain some extra points by trying to finish each round as the aggressor, but his efforts were in vain as Arthur continued to dominate the fight.
The second half of the fight
During the second half of the fight, commentors noticed Arthur’s reluctance to throw a punch with his right hand, suggesting that he might have a possible shoulder injury. Yarde and his trainer failed to notice and adapt, losing the opportunity to take advantage until round 9. In this round, Yarde’s corner pushed him to increase the pace and make Arthur uncomfortable. Arthur responded with a classy one flush early in the round, causing Yarde to step-back, worried Arthur had been bluffing over the injury. At this point in the fight, nobody could guess how the judges were scoring the boxers, both of whom had had spells of inactivity. With one commentor stating it was a mystifying display by Yarde.
Round ten came and went and with the exception of a purposeful flurry towards the end, the round itself was fairly uneventful. Despite this, Ajayi still claimed that Arthur was running scared, as both boxers began to pick up the pace. Yarde’s performance suddenly had an air of urgency about it, as he started stalking his prey in the ring.
In round twelve, Arthur continued to be as evasive as possible, but Yarde let two big right hands fly which left Arthur slightly wobbling. However, Arthur managed to stay upright and bide his time by regularly clinching whenever the space between the boxers became too small.
End of the match
By the time the fight had come to a close, both fighters felt they’d done enough to be crowned champion, however, they also knew it was close and both agreed to a rematch. Overall, Yarde’s performance was considered largely disappointing, with comments that despite the titles at stake, Yarde didn’t let his hands go frequently enough. The fight was incredibly close, but the judges unanimously decided that Arthur deserved to retain his title. As the scores were declared, Yarde was left bemused, fully believing he deserved to be crowned winner.
Post-fight comments
Arthur revealed that he was in fact suffering from an injury that he had sustained in the build-up to the fight.
Adding: “Nothing really got through, besides the jabs – and I was winning that battle. I thought it [the fight itself] was close, I felt like his defence was good. Of course [we can] rematch, absolutely.”
Yarde commented: “I rocked him heavy, out-jabbed him. There were parts where it was close, I landed my jabs and was pressing the fight the whole time. I need to watch it back again and don’t like saying this, but personally and strongly feel it [the result] was a robbery. Every time he threw it [the right-hand], I countered that but the judges can’t see it. There’s learning to do from that fight but that doesn’t mean I think I lost. If you look at who landed the clean, effective punches… this is boxing, you’re not going to go out there and be reckless.”
Promoter Frank Warren went onto confirm that there will most likely be a rematch, stating that this would most likely be scheduled in for the new year and adding that when the rematch takes place, fans will expect more urgency from both boxers.
