CLINTON Woods will fly home to consider his boxing future, after seeing his dream of a lucrative light-heavyweight showdown against Joe Calzaghe shattered at the St Pete Times Forum in Tampa.
Woods delivered a painfully honest self-assessment after a disappointing performance which saw him lose his IBF 175lbs title by a wide unanimous decision to home favourite Antonio Tarver.
Even Doncaster judge Howard Foster felt able to give Wood
s just one round in his 119-109 verdict – while the other two officials were slightly more generous in scoring 116-112, 117-111 for the defending champion.
But the most galling thing for Woods was that 39-year-old Tarver seemed ripe for the taking and could easily have given the Sheffield man the crowning moment of his heroic and improbably successful career.
Woods said afterwards: "I could have done much better than that. All I want to do now is go home and see my family. I don't want to make a decision about my future now. But I've still achieved more than I ever thought I would achieve in my career."
Tarver might have made things awkward for Woods, but the way he was sucking up air from the early rounds onwards lent plenty of weight to suggestions that the American former champion is well past his best. But even a Tarver who looked flat and sluggish had too much for Woods.
Close to tears, Woods' manager Dennis Hobson said: "Clinton's a lot better than that, and I don't want him to finish without doing himself justice. He's come back from the setbacks before, and I want a happy ending. He can't go out like that."
All night Woods moved forward too cautiously, allowing Tarver to plod around at walking pace at will and flick the shots which won him round after round. Woods was bleeding around the nose in the sixth
, and boos began ringing around the arena during round eight. Despite his last frantic efforts in the dying minutes, when he finally succeeded in drawing Tarver into a fiery exchange, it was far too late.
What added to the sense of what might have been for Woods was the performance in the co-feature of 39-year-old Glen Johnson. The Jamaican veteran was unlucky to drop a 116-112 (three times) verdict to the division's supposed coming force Chad Dawson in what was by contrast a magnificent, explosive WBC title showdown.
Former world heavyweight title challenger Danny Williams blamed jetlag for an uninspiring six-round points win over American journeyman Marcus McGee in the first fight of the night. Williams decked his flabby foe in rounds one and four but failed to put him away.
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