Hollow and dangerous consolation for Sergiy Derevyanchenko

I love a good in-ring war. Who doesn’t? Give me Hagler/Hearns or Gatti/Ward, all day long.

Saturday night, live from Videotron Centre in Quebec City, Canada, it was undefeated 168-pound banger Christian Mbilli (28-0, 23 KO’s) against 3-time world title challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-6, 10 KOs).

In a strong performance, Mbilli picked up a hard-fought, UD 10, inching closer to a world title shot. Congrats to Christian on a great win over an iron-tough and determined Derevyanchenko.   

However, in the main event Saturday night, I watched a fighter take needless punishment late in a fight that everyone could see he had no realistic chance of turning around.

Early in the fight, Sergiy Derevyanchenko tore his bicep, virtually rendering him a 1-armed fighter. This is a huge disadvantage against anyone, let alone an aggressive, strong, power-punching Christian Mbilli.

Derevyanchenko also isn’t the 1-punch power puncher that was going to pull a Julian Jackson and save himself with one shot. This scenario quickly turned into a man who was going to take severe punishment, in a fight he was badly compromised in, simply because he was tough enough to do so.

This type of left arm injury not only makes the jab virtually inoperable, it also takes away the ability to use your left to block the thunderous right hands Mbilli would unload all night. In short, it severely hampers both your offense and defense. 

A fighter won’t quit; that is why they are a fighter.

Derevyanchenko’s head trainer Andre Rozier would later defend his decision to allow his man to fight on saying he was respecting his fighter’s wishes.

“I said, ‘Do you want me to stop this fight?’ and he said ‘no’. That is the sign of a warrior, and he continued to fight one of the best 168-pounders in the world with one hand,” said Rozier.

Why would you want your fighter to fight “one of the best 168-pounders in the world” with just one hand?

Praise for bravery, or earning the title of “warrior”, in fighting “one of the best 168-pound fighters in the world with one hand” is hollow consolation in compared to the potential risks of allowing a fighter to operate in such a dangerous environment under such compromised conditions.

This is as wrong as it gets in my opinion. The trainer gets paid to do what is right, not what a fighter “wishes” - a fighter will always wish to continue. The trainer gets paid to step in and make that tough call to save a fighter from himself as most fighters will never, ever make that call. It goes against everything they are as a fighter - so make the call for them and allow them to get out of the fight with their pride intact.  

That is why it’s the corner’s job, or the referee’s job, or the commission’s job to step in and quit for him. ESPN commentator Tim Bradley pleaded time and again for them to stop the fight and asked on air, “Why? What is the point of this continuing?” And he was right. Boxing is a dangerous enough sport when the playing field is even.

Once Derevyanchenko lost the use of his left arm, he was on borrowed time. You simply can’t compete at that level, against a fighter like Mbilli, with a compromise as great as the loss of the use of an arm. Why his trainer, experienced and well-respected Andre Rozier, would let that go on for the full 10 rounds is beyond me. Why a commissioner wasn’t waving his arms and screaming for the ref to stop the fight is beyond me. Why the referee didn’t call a halt is beyond me.

Going into the fight, while only having 20 bouts, Derevyanchenko was 38 years old and had gone the distance with Daniel Jacobs, Gennadiy Golovkin, Jermall Charlo, and Carlos Adames, to name a few. It wasn’t like he was a fresh fighter who had been given a soft ride in his career. He had exchanged a lot of hard punches with a lot of good fighters.

He deserved every chance to get the win Saturday night. But, once the playing field changed for him, and the window was rapidly closing, it was time to get him out. The result was academic by the 2nd half the fight and the scores reflected that (99-91, 98-92, 100-90). The only thing left for him to do, by staying in that fight until the final bell, was to take unnecessary punishment and risk getting hurt - and others allowed him to do that.

One post-fight statistic revealed that in this fight he had taken more power shots, many to the head, than in any other fight in his career. Understandable considering the circumstances.

I get it. It’s the fight game, it’s a rough sport and people get beat up. Fair enough. But a fighter will never quit. A fight is often over, long before the final bell, or it is stopped. Once the ending is a foregone conclusion it’s just a matter of how it ends.

If Derevyanchenko has 2 good arms, is it a different fight? Absolutely. And, I would have loved to have seen that. But, stuff happens in a fight and you don’t always get the outcome you hoped for. But, to allow this dangerous charade to continue, as if it was a fair fight, just because one of the guys was too proud to ask his corner to stop it, and tough enough to take the punishment, was just wrong. You take it out of the fighter’s hands and stop it for him.

Why did it go on? Pride? To say you went the distance? To prove how much punishment you can take? A corner, not the fighter, needs to weigh the risk-reward scenario at all times. And in this fight, the decision was painfully obvious.

Trainer Rozier shouldn’t have been asking his fighter if he wants him to stop it - he knows what the fighter will say. He should have been asking himself, should this fight continue?

On Saturday night, Derevyanchenko did his job - he never stopped fighting.

Others, who should have stopped it for him, didn’t do theirs.