THE PENDULUM SWUNG throughout this pulsating world-title unification contest, but ultimately America’s Danny Roman just swung slightly harder than Ireland’s TJ Doheny who suffered a first professional defeat in California on Friday night.
Roman earned a majority-decision victory to add Doheny’s IBF World super-bantamweight title to his own WBA equivalent on scores of 113-113 and 116-110 x2 after 12 rounds of action which surpassed already-lofty expectations.
The latter two scores were wide, and while Roman is now eyeing his other fellow champions at the weight, a rematch wouldn’t look out of place following a blood-curdling clash which left observers’ hairs raised on either side of the Atlantic.
It was a sparse-enough crowd at Inglewood’s Forum considering Roman hails from the same Los Angeles town, but Doheny received decent acclaim and few jeers from the hometown faithful — a theme which continued post-fight when two of the sport’s gentlemen paid tribute to each other at centre-ring.
WHAT A FIGHT! 🔥 Danny Roman came out on top in an incredible battle between 2 world champions.
— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) April 27, 2019
Here are just 3 of the key moments... 👇
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A strong opening two minutes in which his straight left was the key weapon drew an audible chorus of ‘Olé Olé’ from Doheny’s visiting contingent, and the southpaw closed out the opener with a staff jab off his lead right hand before the bell.
Doheny, 32, popped Roman, 28, with a left uppercut to begin the second, and followed it up with the fight’s best shot to that point — an overhand left through the guard.
Roman finally got off the mark with a nice body shot below Doheny’s elbow and seconds later, seized the early momentum. As Doheny loaded up on another left, he was blindsided by a thudding shot off Roman’s same hand. Without firm footing, Doheny took it to the jaw and hit the deck.
The IBF champion wasn’t hurt but seemed less than pleased, beating the count with a scowl and losing the second round 10-8.
Roman probably did enough to double his lead in a tentative third, neither man landing much to perturb the other.
The 28-year-old stepped on the gas in a barn-burning fourth, buzzing Doheny with a sequence of stinging shots as he marched him towards a corner. Doheny, troubled briefly, fired back in spades by way of a series of crunching straight lefts.
He poured more out than his adversary in order to gain at least parity in the stanza, but Doheny — who beckoned Roman onwards in the midst of his own barrage — might have done enough to knick it with the cleaner work.
Doheny, as he tends to be, was the more visibly marked of the two champions but boxed well in the fifth, finding fleeting success as Roman began to force his way forward. The Californian had one notable right hand by way of response.
Roman was more effective in a close sixth: Doheny’s efforts were the more eye-catching until seconds before the ding, when the American put together a nice attack punctuated by a straight right hand upstairs.
All hell — and TJ Doheny with it — broke loose in round 7. Doheny unleashed a thunderous left hook around Roman’s right paw, wobbling the American before marching him down and dishing out sustained punishment to body and head.
Roman, conspicuously reeling, crumbled to the canvas halfway through the barrage but it was correctly adjudged not to have been a knockdown by referee Raul Caiz Sr; the hometown fighter fell more so under Doheny’s weight than as a result of a single shout.
Doheny poured it on but Roman stayed on his feet, deflecting some heat and walking gingerly to his corner.
The Portlaoise man edged the eighth but found himself in Funky Town during a spectacular ninth. A huge left uppercut by Roman sent Doheny — his nose in bits — sprawling backwards. The American pursued him to the ropes, crunching him with two further left hands to either deck.
Doheny, his legs jellied, somehow found the fortitude to then walk his opponent down, inviting upon himself war, lashing out with a burst of left hands as he took fire from the WBA champ who RSVPed without hesitation.
The ninth and 10th verses saw Roman bring plenty more heat, his body attack again effective, while the visibly more fatigued Doheny still threw back with spite intermittently.
The penultimate round spelt disaster for Doheny’s hopes of unifying the division and yet he emerged with huge credit. Roman hurt him with a huge left hand to the body before recycling the shot with even more venom, reducing Doheny to a heap of agony on the canvas.
The Leinsterman rose Lazarus-like perhaps even against his better judgement, inexplicably standing up to a bolting right hand which greeted his jaw as he retreated to regather some wind.
He saw out the round in some kind of natural phenomenon and turned supernatural in a freakish 12th. Doheny attacked to significant success, upping the ante in the final 30 seconds as he chased a miracle finish which never quite had enough time to arrive.
There was to be no protesting the scores by Doheny, who pointed towards the new WBA and IBF world champion in acknowledgement.
Roman was equally gracious in victory, telling Chris Mannix of DAZN: “No wonder they call him ‘The Power!’”
Added Doheny, who’ll doubtless get another shot at world honours in the very near future: “He’s a great fighter but more importantly he’s an absolute gentleman.”
Per CompuBox, Roman was the more active but Doheny the more accurate: the new unified champ landed 195 of 742 (26%) total punches and 174 of 532 (33%) power shots. Doheny found the target with 150 of 503 (30%) total blows, and 127 of 356 (36%) power shots.
