No Arthur never totally battered Gomez but he did batter him whenever it was at long range - which it was at the start. The reason Gomez was in that fight was because Arthur just abandoned his jab.stujones wrote:I disagree on a few accounts there.
1) Gomez was never "getting battered" by Arthur - he was well up.
2) Gomez wasn't even a four round fighter vs Khan... Khan shots in the opener shook him too his boots and his strength was gone in the 3rd.... watch the fight again. He would come forward and basically lean on Khan mouth wide open and make try one or two arm punches. Caught him with a beaut in the 4th - but that was it.
It was Khan's strength and punching power that stopped the Gomez head movement, and slowed his legs down - and he did it earlier than any other fighter.
Yes, his performance reminded me of DLH vs Chavez II - which tactically I suppose wasn't right, but Khan knew, just like DLH knew that his power was having an effect and slowing him down and he also knew that Chavez/Gomez's punches were having less and less effect the more Khan/DLH were landed hard shots of their own.
End of the day he won in exiting, crowd pleasing fashion and aside from a combined 40 second spell it was easy.
Three rounds of clever work from Khan would left Gomez nowhere and with nothing. You say 40 seconds, I reckon a bit longer but either way it only takes 1 second to lose a fight. Its not like Khan didn't have reason to work up tactics that protected his chin or give him an advantage- De La Hoya he is not.
Whether Khan won easy or whether the fight was exciting is a different question to whether his tactics were unimpressive which is what I'm saying. In a closer fight, tactics will be crucial - maybe Khan will shape up here against a better opponent, maybe he won't.
