One undisputed champion entered the squared circle on Saturday. Two walked out.
This sounds like the boxing equivalent of some kind of quantum anomaly. This situation, fortunately, is far easier to make sense of, and no particle accelerator was required to facilitate the bombastic collision between Jessica McCaskill and Chantelle Cameron. Just a boxing ring in Abu Dhabi.
McCaskill, unrivaled in her supremacy at 147 pounds since upsetting Cecilia Braekhus two years ago, last turned away a challenge to her crown this past June by pummeling Alma Ibarra into submission after only three rounds.
Meanwhile, WBC, IBF, and Ring magazine super-lightweight champion Chantelle Cameron boxed circles around Victoria Bustos back in May when her much-anticipated ‘Road to Undisputed’ fight with WBA/WBO/IBO title holder Kali Reis failed to materialize.
During a hiatus taken to tend to medical issues, Reis, having received rave reviews for her Indie Spirit Award-nominated performance in the feature film Catch the Fair One, accepted a co-starring role opposite Jodie Foster on the upcoming fourth season of HBO’s True Detective. When, or indeed if, she will return to the prize ring is strictly hypothetical at this stage.
McCaskill and Cameron had both lost out to Amanda Serrano in this year’s Katie Taylor lottery, so they opted for a super-fight against one another instead. Not exactly a penny-ante consolation prize. The unknown variable to be solved was whose titles would be up for grabs.
Ultimately, it was decided that McCaskill would climb back down the scales to the 140-pound division where she first became a world champion by winning the WBC title from Erica Anabella Farias in 2018, and taking ownership of the vacant WBA strap by outpointing Anahi Ester Sanchez.
The current custodian of the green and gold hardware formerly worn around the waist of McCaskill, Cameron was not only putting her three championships on the line against Jessica, but looking to scoop up the trio of titles subsequently vacated by Kali Reis which were thrown into the mix to ensure that nothing less than the entire collection would go home with the winner. For McCaskill, of course, this complete set of title belts would be her second.
Under these conditions, there was so very much for both women to gain. But Cameron alone stood to lose everything in terms of personal property. To the victor, the spoils of war would also include bragging rights, a more favorable spot over the other on the pound-for-pound rankings, and maybe, just maybe, that mega-bout showdown with Katie Taylor.
But, first thing’s first. To Abu Dhabi we go for the first women’s boxing match to take place in the United Arab Emirates. Don’t let the judges’ scorecards fool you, the fight wasn’t as close as they would have you believe. Cameron set the needle in the groove at the opening bell and established the rhythm she and McCaskill would dance to for the next twenty minutes. And ‘Caskilla,’ whose moves are unorthodox already, looked especially off-balance almost from the very outset..
Her trainer Rick Ramos wrote it off to the disorienting effects of a first-round head clash, the evidence of which was visible high up over Jessica’s left eye. You have to wonder though, what toll, if any, did the seven-pound weight cut take on McCaskill’s 38-year-old body and could it too have been partly responsible for her early lethargy? Only they know the answer to that.
What is not open to debate is the manner in which Cameron weaponized her punishing jab which created openings for stiff right hands with the vast majority of everything she threw connecting nearly at will. All the while, she employed lateral movement to frustrate a lunging McCaskill into continually swinging and missing, with the exception of one nicely timed left hook that grazed Chantelle as she backed up toward the end of the first round.
The most impressive facet of Cameron’s last several outings has been her gradual evolution from a slugger into a boxer. This is not to suggest that Chantelle was previously without nuance or finesse, but many hours have obviously been put in by Cameron and her team to fine tune these technical aspects so that her added dimensions serve her well in high stakes situations such as these.
For example, Cameron and her trainer Jamie Moore smartly determined that uppercuts would be Chantelle’s best friend in exploiting McCaskill’s ill-advised tendency to lead with her head, crouching down and lurching forward to wing blind sidearm haymakers that leave her chin temporarily exposed.
Bouncing energetically on the balls of her feet, Cameron would circle to Jessica’s left before reversing course and stalking her prey from the other way which not only kept her adversary guessing from which angle the incoming volleys might be launched and unable to set herself to get off impactful punches of her own, but greatly enhanced the illusion that the directionless McCaskill was plodding through quicksand.
The bigger, taller Cameron also used her size advantage to lean on McCaskill, doubling her over and thus tiring her out ever more.It wasn’t until the sixth that Jessica appeared to finally gather her wits about her and enjoy enough success that, well behind on points at this juncture, she was able to put a round in the bank to lessen the deficit. Her shot selection and connect rate were vastly improved throughout the latter half of the fight, and the return of her trademark intensity was no doubt a welcome sight to her corner.
A spirited second half notwithstanding, it was simply too little too late for McCaskill. The pendulum had swung too far in Cameron’s favor by this stage of the game, and it had taken Jessica an unfortunate amount of time to crawl out of the pit she had dug for herself throughout the first five rounds. Precision, effectiveness, ring generalship, all of these factored into the dominant fashion of Chantelle’s performance.
The tenth and final frame gave us a glimpse of the toe to toe slugfest some of us were expecting this undisputed clash to have been all along, both women emptying their arsenals before a conservatively restrained crowd of spectators.
Chantelle Cameron pulled away with the fight from the beginning and left little doubt as to the outcome, but McCaskill admirably recovered to make things interesting down the stretch. So much so that two judges awarded the bout to Chantelle by curiously slim margins of 96-94, while the third scorecard made Cameron’s victory a unanimous one by a more reasonable 97-93 verdict, making her the first British undisputed women’s boxing champion.
The vanquished McCaskill didn’t travel back home to Chicago empty handed, of course. She is still in possession of each and every one of her welterweight title belts. But for how long? Cameron stated her intention to offer McCaskill a rematch, but this time at 147 pounds with all of Jessica’s straps on the line.
Chantelle feels it’s only right, though, to give Kali Reis the right to first refusal for a crack at her undisputed crown, half of which consists of belts relinquished by Reis to make this coronation possible.
Boxing pundits, not unlike theoretical physicists, love a good debate. The integrity of both fields thrives and depends on discussion, experimentation, and nonconformity. After last night, however, it is an undeniable matter of fact that the name Chantelle Cameron has been elevated much closer to the top of the conversation concerning the ranking of modern day greats. How far up? Well, let the discourse begin.
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