Billy's road back starts tonight
Posted: 08 Jul 2009, 20:16
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 79,00.htmlBILLY Dib is in the business of champions. He is in regular phone contact with Prince Naseem Hamed, the former British contortionist who once ruled the featherweight division.
Last year he fought on the Bernard Hopkins undercard, "B-Hop" considered another close personal friend.
He has shared training camps with Oscar De La Hoya. Two fights ago Shane Mosley flew all the way to Australia just to watch him fight.
When Billy had his crack at the big title last October, taking on American Steve Luevano for the WBO featherweight belt, he was set to step in the rare air his champion friends inhabit.
Or inhabited.
But somewhere along the line Billy got lost.
The distinction between being a champion and hanging around champions grew grey.
Dib went to America for his own shot and got beaten comprehensively.
Judge Adalaide Byrd scored it 115-113, judge Dave Moretti had it 116-112 and judge Joseph Pasquale 117-111, all to Luevano.
It was written here the fight exposed Billy as being "still short of the basic fundamentals to be a solid, dominant world champion".
Like his hero Hamed had against Mexican Marco Antonioa Barrera, Dib came unstuck against an opponent with less gifts but better schooling, and perhaps even a greater desire. Suddenly the emperor was wearing no clothes.
Dib's supporters were upset by the comments. The phone rang hot.
Billy went all the way to America, they claimed, to represent Australia, and this is the reaction he gets? It takes great courage to get into any boxing ring, they said, and yet all you can do is bag Billy?
He had gone and fought the world champion, on his home turf, and for what? They were absolutely right, Billy had done all of that.
But they were also wrong.
After nine rounds it was clear Billy was not going to win the fight if it continued down the path of the previous nine rounds.
He just wasn't going to win.
Billy needed to change his fightplan. He needed to dig.
Most of all, he needed to do what all the great champion hearts do, which is find a way.
Instead, he simply lasted through the final three rounds, earning a respectable loss.
When Kostya Tszyu shortened Zab Judah, the knockout soon became a YouTube staple.
Few realise or give consideration to how the fight began, which makes the end only more dramatic.
Judah boxed the ears off Tszyu in the opening round. He beat him to the jab, landed the cleaner shots and looked like he had all the tools he needed to handle Kostya Tszyu.
If it was going to be another 12 rounds of this, Tszyu was no hope.
The genius of Tszyu is that between rounds he subtly changed tactics. He shortened the distance between them. While Judah continued as if nothing had changed Tszyu had drawn him right on to the end of his punch.
One punch put Judah down twice, the referee catching him as he fell a third time.
These are the great ones.
When Jeff Harding went to America to fight Dennis Andries, 20 years ago last month, he did so on 20 days' notice.
Andries had no idea about the kid from Australia. Nobody else in America did, either.
And after 11 rounds Harding trailed on all three judges cards as the fight pretty much went to plan. Harding was split over both eyes and under one. His nose was pulp.
"You gotta knock him out to win," trainer Johnny Lewis told him, picking him up.
"Go out and come back a champion."
Harding looked through busted eyes at his trainer.
"I love ya, Johnny," and with that Jeff Harding put Andries down three times and went back as champion.
At Luna Park tonight, on what is the road back, Billy Dib has the potential to do all that.
To be all that.
