GO FIGURE

Just how wide open the heavyweight division really is was shown in Lamon Brewster’s narrow escape against Kali Meehan at the Mandalay Bay casino resort in Las Vegas on 4 September.

On any given night, anybody can beat anybody in what was once the glamour division of boxing. Once, but not any more.

Brewster, generally expected to blow out Meehan, instead found himself in one of those life-and-death struggles and very nearly lost his World Boxing Organisation title in his first defence.

It shouldn’t have been this way. Meehan, the New Zealand-born Australian, looked the proverbial handpicked opponent. He had, for goodness’ sake, been Brewster’s sparring partner, when he was picked for his height (6ft 5ins) to get Brewster ready for his upset win over Wladimir Klitschko last April.

Although Meehan had lost only once in 30 fights it was a pretty devastating type of defeat, a two-knockdown, 32-second blowout against Danny Williams three years ago. In his 29 wins, 23 inside the distance, Meehan had not beaten one fighter who could be considered even on the fringe of world class.

The Aussie turned out, though, to be a better fighter than many of us had expected. Or maybe it was just that Brewster fought far below expectations.

Harsh judgements were being passed on Brewster in the media section at Mandalay Bay. The pervading view was that here was an ordinary fighter who got lucky in his fight with Klitschko. “He was getting beaten up but the other guy ran out of gas,” was typical of the comments one heard.

Brewster, to me, is one of those inconsistent fighters. You can never be quite sure what you’ll be getting until the bell rings.

He looked very good in third-round blowouts of the 6ft 5ins Irish Tommy Martin and the Olympic bronze medallist Nate Jones, both of whose careers he ruined.

But the same Brewster was almost run out of the ring by Clifford Etienne and comprehensively outboxed by journeyman Charles Shufford. As we say these days: Go figure.

There is no doubt, though, that Brewster is game and has a good chin, qualities he needed against Meehan.

The eighth round was a nightmare for Brewster when, pinned on the ropes, he took so many punches that no one could have faulted referee Jay Nady had he stopped the fight.

But, while the referee hovered close by, he gave Brewster the benefit of the doubt, obviously being well aware of how the Los Angeles boxer weathered a fourth-round bombardment from Klitschko and came back to win.

And, to my astonishment, Brewster came back in the ninth round to carry the fight to Meehan — and actually won the last four rounds on the consensus scoring of the three judges (when at least two of the judges agree in each round).

It had been a desperately close-run thing, though. Judge Adelaide Byrd of Las Vegas had Meehan winning by 114-113, while Las Vegas judge Dave Moretti had Brewster in front by the same score, both giving Meehan a 10-8 round for his dominant eighth, while Nelson Vazquez of Puerto Rico saw it 115-113 in Brewster’s favour (he had Meehan winning the eighth by the “standard” 10-9).

Just one round on the Dave Moretti card, then, and the title would have changed hands. It doesn’t get much closer than that.

My own ringside impression was that Meehan had won by 114-113, which was one point different from how my “media row” scoring appeared on the American TV network, Showtime (see Frontline Diary).

When a fight is as close as this, no one can argue too much about a decision. Both camps admitted that the fight could have gone either way. Meehan would say only that it was his job to fight, not to disagree with the judges, and he was happy just to have fought well and, he hoped, gained some fans in America (which he surely did).

Meehan’s competent performance showed once again that one-round defeats often are not indicative of a fighter’s ability. A boxer can simply get caught by a big punch before he gets started — as happened to John Ruiz against David Tua, for instance.

This is not to say that Meehan is anything out of the ordinary. He did, though, show good, basic ability, some hand speed, respectable punching power and plenty of heart.

I think it was inexperience at top level that beat Meehan as much as Brewster did. He had the fight won coming out for the ninth round, but instead of going right at Brewster, he continued with a strategy that, to be fair, had been working well up to that point, which was to box on the outside, use the jab, throw quick, sharp punches and then move away again.

Brewster, simply by pressing forward and moving his hands a little, was able to get a bit of momentum going.

Both men looked tired down the stretch and at times it looked as if either could go if the other man could land just one big, clear shot. Brewster’s legs hadn’t looked quite right since the eighth, and Meehan was taking deep breaths (although he had been doing this more or less from the start).

I think that if Meehan had gone at Brewster and let the right hand fly in the ninth, he would have won. The mistake he made, it seemed to me, was in trying to steal the title, to back into it, so to speak, rather than gambling a bit and going for something more decisive.

But I don’t want to be too critical here, because what Meehan was doing, and the advice he was getting in the corner, almost paid off.

As the fighters came out for the last round, I had it all even, 6-5 in rounds in Brewster’s favour but dead-level on points, 104-104.

Brewster started the final round well and he ended it with a bit of a rush, but Meehan clearly seemed to control most of the 12th, jabbing, landing the right hand, sending Brewster to the ropes. Brewster, though, got the round on the scorecards of judges Moretti and Vazquez, and it allowed him to eke out the win.

Afterwards, Brewster, 31, blamed his performance on inactivity, having had just the fight with Klitschko in the last 18 months. We’ll see an improved performance in his next fight, he promised.

Brewster’s trainer, Shadeed Suluki, said in conversation afterwards: “It was close but I had no doubt we pulled it out in the late rounds. But he [Brewster] made the fight harder than it need have been. He just had to let his hands go a little more. Every time he hit the guy, he hurt him. It was just an off night. Lamon could have done a lot better; he knows that himself.”

True enough, Brewster did seem to rock Meehan several times, notably in the first, the third, late in the sixth and with a left hook in the 10th, but he was unwilling or simply unable to sustain an assault. Perhaps he was concerned about his stamina if the fight went into the later rounds.

Meehan, too, boxed in the manner of someone who was pacing himself, a little more understandable in his case as the 34-year-old had never been past eight rounds.

Had Brewster been able to increase the tempo and keep the pressure on Meehan, I think he might well have stopped him. There seemed a little doubt in Meehan’s mind, as if he couldn’t quite believe how well he was doing.

But with Brewster boxing at a slow pace, “making moves”, as they say, without actually throwing punches, Meehan was able to start picking up points and getting a bit of confidence.

When Meehan was able to land the jab, the right hand, a body punch here and there, without a great deal coming back at him, the underdog realised that at the very least he could box on even terms with Brewster.

In the biggest fight of his life, though, I had the impression that Meehan lacked that little bit extra in the self-belief department that might have made the difference between winning and losing. He gave his opponent just a little too much respect. Which was a good thing for Brewster, who, just by moving forward and looking as if he was ready to fight in the ninth, might have bluffed Meehan out of making the commitment to aggression that could, at that point, have brought about a dramatic victory for the challenger.

Brewster deserves some credit, though, for pulling himself together as well as he did after an eighth round from hell. Whatever one may think about him as a fighter, he proved once more that at least he has a champion’s heart.

Promoter Don King was talking about matching Brewster with Evander Holyfield, but the WBO appeared to be standing firm in insisting that its mandatory challenger, Lance Whitaker, must be first in line. Going by Brewster’s performance against Meehan, he would be on shaky ground against Whitaker; even a faded, 40-year-old Holyfield would, on this showing, give him a lot of trouble and might well beat him.

I sensed from the beginning of the fight that Brewster was in for a long night. There were boos from the crowd of 9,128 (many had complimentary tickets) at the lack of action in the early stages. In the second round, Brewster’s nose suddenly started streaming blood — and he hardly seemed to have been hit by a punch.

All of a sudden people started to sense that a major upset could be unfolding. In the seventh I noted: “M. dominates rd. as B. does nothing.” But much, much worse was to follow for Brewster in the eighth. He got caught by a right hand and suddenly, almost as if in delayed reaction, his legs buckled and he stumbled back. Meehan practically sprinted to get at him. Brewster seemed unable to get off the ropes as Meehan landed punch after punch, mostly right-hand slams to the side of the head but also a terrific right uppercut. Brewster listed like a torpedoed battleship but somehow, barely, stayed upright to be saved by the bell.

The left side of Brewster’s face was swollen, his legs looked shaky, his nose was still leaking blood, but he was, Lord love him, still there, and through sheer effort of will he managed to grind his way through the last four rounds to get the close, debatable but not really controversial decision.

It had been, against most expectations, a highly competitive and, in its own way, compelling contest.

Brewster has now come back from the brink twice in a row and each time I do not know quite how he did it. I’m not sure if he can do it again.

For additional coverage of this show, including Frontline Diary, see October issue