Zappa vs. Langham Saturday nite
By Anthony J Nobbs
On Saturday night at the Auburn RSL in Sydney's West, former IBF and IBO
flyweight boss Vic Darchinyan meets Filipino Federico Catubay for the
vacant IBO super flyweight belt. In a battle of unbeatens, the main support
act sees 2004 Olympian Ryan Langham (9-0, 5 KO's) challenges 2006
Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Lenny Zappa (10-0, 7 KO's) for the
Australian lightweight title the Sydney fighter won on November 24 last
year.
While the two were successful amateurs, their professional careers have
differed somewhat. Langham's has stalled while Zappa's has soared.
According to boxing forums and columns Zappa appears to go into the fight a
firm favorite. Many who think this point to Langham's eight round majority
points win over Robert Oyan eleven months ago on a Jamie Myer Fight Night
from the Gold Coast. Zappa won an easy ten round decision over Oyan,
pitching a shutout on two cards, in May.
What most people don't realise is that 5 foot 11 southpaw Langham was no
where near his best that night. Suffering the flu a week prior, Ryan
struggled in the last few days of training and was in a lot of doubt, even
at one stage asking for the bout shortened to six rounds. Still “sick as a
dog” entering the ring, a white as a ghost Langham was wide ahead going
into the final stanza. Early in the eighth he was dropped by a short right
hand. He was down again, from a left hook and barely saw out the round,
being deducted a point for tackling the desperate Oyan to the floor.
The decision of 77-74, 75-74 and 75-75 was greeted with a mixed response
from the crowd and Oyan immediately stormed from the ring. Langham admits
at first he thought he had lost but when reviewing the tape knew that he'd
won. This writer trained Langham for the fight and personally feels that it
was a fight where “Iron” Ryan showed mettle, knowing what was his
condition.
“One round doesn't win a fight” said Ryan on Thursday. “He hardly hit me
for the first seven. Everyone says it was a bad fight but they don't know
how crook I was. Only my camp knew. After the third round I had no legs. If
I had not needed the money at the time I probably would have pulled out of
the fight. If I didn't have to pace myself I probably would have stopped
him.”
Since then, Langham, 25, has returned to Perth, Western Australia and Craig
Christian's well established Harry's Gym where he'd been based since his
second pro start in 2005. “The training over there (on the Gold Coast) was
good but there was no sparring. My main sparring partner for my two fights
there last year was (middleweight) Gavin Topp” said Langham, who was born
in Blacktown, West Sydney but grew up on the Gold Coast in Queensland. “And
I never sparred for two and a half weeks before both those fights”.
“Over in Perth I'm sparring against blokes around my own weight” he said,
naming Chris John, Noefel Ben Rabah, William Kickett and Simson Butar Butar
as some of the fighters he has boxed since moving back in February. “And
I'm sparring all the time”. Of late he has boxed Kickett, promising amateur
Brendan Wilson and Indonesia's Alex Bajawa, a 36-0-2, 11 KO's
featherweight.
“It's gonna be a tough hard fight. I respect Lenny, he is a strong boy. I'm
going to use my advantages to win the fight” he said. “But everyone points
to me being dropped by Oyan but Lenny was dropped twice in the first round
by a novice, Junmar Dulog. And he (Dulog) is a southpaw. I like that”.
“If Ryan sticks to the game plan and boxes the way a southpaw should he
can't lose this fight. There might even be a late stoppage” said trainer
Craig Christian.
“This fight is as much about respect as it is for the Australian title”
concludes Langham, who goes in listed at number 4 by the ANBF. “Lenny's a
bloke who has had a lot of wraps put on him. This is the fight I wanted.
After I beat Lenny people will have to respect me”.
Also on Saturday nights card, shown live on Foxsports is an interesting non
title fight between William Kickett and Filipino PABA 130 lb champ Jun
Paderna.
Someone's O must go!
In the words of Neil Diamond ".......and no one heard, not even the chair"Brute wrote:I have known boxers who have won State amateur titles and not gone beyond 6 rounders as pros. Succeeding at the former does not always lead to success at the later.
In the words of Cindy Lauper, money changes everything.
Neil did sing some gibberish.Grant wrote:In the words of Neil Diamond ".......and no one heard, not even the chair"Brute wrote:I have known boxers who have won State amateur titles and not gone beyond 6 rounders as pros. Succeeding at the former does not always lead to success at the later.
In the words of Cindy Lauper, money changes everything.
Who knows? could be an upset, this is the first opponent lenny has had with a solid amatuer history and decent amount of experience..
Just out of curiosity does anyone here know how many fights lenny zappa had as an amatuer? did he do a jeff fenech and go pro after like 38 fights, i know in this age of aussie boxing fighters are turning pro earlier and earlier (apart from obvious ones like danny green)
Just out of curiosity does anyone here know how many fights lenny zappa had as an amatuer? did he do a jeff fenech and go pro after like 38 fights, i know in this age of aussie boxing fighters are turning pro earlier and earlier (apart from obvious ones like danny green)
Jeff Fenech was robbed of a medal at the 1984 Olympics. He won the fight against Redzepovski on the cards of the judges, but a bunch of thieves called "The Jury" who had been put in in a misguided effort to clean up Olympic boxing reversed the division for no good reason. He turned professional in disgust at his treatment.Bushboy wrote:Who knows? could be an upset, this is the first opponent lenny has had with a solid amatuer history and decent amount of experience..
Just out of curiosity does anyone here know how many fights lenny zappa had as an amatuer? did he do a jeff fenech and go pro after like 38 fights, i know in this age of aussie boxing fighters are turning pro earlier and earlier (apart from obvious ones like danny green)
As for Lenny Zappa, I do not know how many amateur fights he had, but he was a bronze medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
That had a story behind it. One of the judges gave the fight to the South Korean because he thought he had been beaten so badly he would feel better if he got a win on one card in his home town. Judge got a shock when one of the other judges did the same thing!Bushboy wrote:yeh i read about that in his biography, for a sport like amateur boxing which professes to be the cleaner version of the sport there have been some monumental robberies, like when roy jones jr barely got hit clean in the face in the final at the olympics in korea and somehow lost
Back to the original post, it looked interesting when Langham knocked Zappavigna down in the first, then Lenny got up and abso-bloody lutely FLATTENED Langham. Langham was flat on his face with his eyes closed, but got up & fought on. After four more knockdowns in the next two rounds Craig Christian stopped the slaughter by skying the towel and saving Langham's life.
It was a real brawl, when Langham scored the first KD I thought we were in for a fight but then Zappa kicked it up another gear. It was a good win for Zappa but I'm not pinning my hopes on him for our next World title. Katsidis would KHTFO in the first round if they ever fought...Brute wrote:Back to the original post, it looked interesting when Langham knocked Zappavigna down in the first, then Lenny got up and abso-bloody lutely FLATTENED Langham. Langham was flat on his face with his eyes closed, but got up & fought on. After four more knockdowns in the next two rounds Craig Christian stopped the slaughter by skying the towel and saving Langham's life.