TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

If there's no need to get into a war, why do so? That was Kostya Tszyu's thinking going into his light-welterweight title defence against Ghana's Ben "Wonder" Tackie in Las Vegas on 18 May. It was hit and, essentially, not be hit as the 32-year-old Aussie from Russia put on an artistic boxing exhibition to win easily on points.

The small crowd (announced as 2,917 although that seemed generous) at the Mandalay Bay casino resort had little to get excited about. Tszyu was steady, competent and utterly professional and he won overwhelmingly on the scorecards. Two of the Las Vegas judges gave him all 12 rounds while the third judge gave one round to Tackie, as I did from my ringside seat.

But while Tszyu boxed a smart fight, he wasn't exciting.

Still, you can't really criticise a fighter when he outclasses an opponent that some people in the business considered dangerous.

A potentially hard fight was made easy. Tackie was just as durable as had been anticipated, but he did not offer the storming, swarming attack that we were led to believe would be the case.

Instead the 28-year-old mandatory challenger - ranked No. 1 by the International Boxing Federation - marched in mechanically, hands held high in front of his face, and looked to land big, single shots, either the overhand right or the looping left hook. Most missed wildly. To beat Tszyu, constant pressure and a high workrate are essential. Instead, Tackie was trying to be a one-hit Wonder (as a Las Vegas headline writer put it). This was never going to get the job done.

No knockdowns, no highlights, but for those who can appreciate good boxing and the sport's subtleties, it was an enjoyable enough occasion.

Tszyu kept sticking his left jab in Tackie's face and every so often he fired in a quick right hand, brought up an uppercut through the middle or dug a left hook to the body.

At other times Tszyu pawed with his right, just pushing his glove out in front of him, which seemed to puzzle Tackie, who stayed behind his defensive shell as if he thought that Tszyu might be preparing to unleash a big shot. Then Tszyu would go back to the jab, sometimes four in a row. He seemed to be throwing punches at half-power for most of the fight, but they were quick punches and he was always being busy, so that Tackie was seldom able to get himself into position to throw meaningful blows.

Tackie has always had trouble with smart boxers who keep throwing punches at him, as we saw in his fights with the former featherweight champion, Goyo Vargas, and John John Molina, the former junior lightweight champ.

All Tszyu had to do was keep popping and moving. Sometimes he was just touching the challenger with the jab, but the occasional shot with some steam on it let Tackie know that there was some heavy stuff in reserve.

Tackie, in the biggest fight of his life, was strangely compliant in all of this. It was as if he had accepted his role of pupil against master. As each round followed the other with more of the same it began to look like a glorified sparring session.

Tszyu was jolted a bit by a right hand in the third round and got hit by a couple of left hooks in the 11th, but that was about it from Tackie. The challenger got in some solid jabs and landed a few rights to the body, but otherwise he was just marching stiffly ahead, taking a number of punches on the gloves but also getting hit a lot. His eyes looked puffy but there was no serious damage.

In the fourth round, Tszyu, a 5-1 on betting favourite at the Mandalay Bay casino sports book, seemed to be on his way to becoming the first to stopping Tackie. He moved the African sideways with some thumping rights that he brought around the side of the challenger's high guard.

I thought that Tackie was mentally beaten by the fifth. In this round, Tszyu landed some of his most serious shots of the fight. Tackie looked as if he didn't belong in the ring with him.

If Tszyu had chosen to step things up a notch or two, I think he could have broken Tackie down. Instead, having put the upstart firmly in his place, he chose to give him a boxing lesson. Fair enough.

Tszyu said afterwards that he wanted to show the Americans that he is not just a brawler, that he can also box. He said he didn't throw his hardest punches because there was no need to do so.

So Tszyu stuck to the safe, savvy, winning formula.

This was all well and good, but it was undramatic.

People who understand the sport surely appreciate Tszyu's skills, but textbook boxing doesn't spark a clamour for tickets.

To the uninitiated American fan, Tszyu is just a very good foreign fighter, a bit cold and remote, not someone they can warm to. Tackie is almost unknown outside hard-core boxing circles, and the fighter's inability to communicate clearly in English doesn't help.

It all added up to a distinct lack of buzz.

Also, Tszyu-Tackie and the much-anticipated Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward fight were both available in Las Vegas on competing TV networks but at different times on this Saturday evening. So a stay-at-home fan could have watched the Tszyu fight on the Showtime network, then changed channels to catch the Gatti-Ward fight on a same-night West Coast tape-delay on Home Box Office.

But the few fans in attendance - especially a small but vocal Australian group - seemed to enjoy the proceedings well enough, as if realising they were watching one of the game's elite fighters at work. It might have seemed that Tackie always had the chance to land a big punch but in reality Tszyu had matters totally under control. Tackie went over to Tszyu afterwards and said: "We'll meet again." Tszyu just smiled and said: "I don't think so." Tackie had had his chance, which turned out to be no chance - no chance at all.