Richardson Hitchins has the antidote to boring boxing

Richardson Hitchins showed Saturday that the science of boxing is rarely sweeter than when hit-and-don’t-get-hit concepts are applied appropriately.

There are plenty of recent instances when boxers have confused the above, have gotten the ratio all wrong, and have fought with a style that focuses less on hitting and more on just not getting hit. Period.

Against William Scull on May 3, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, the face of boxing, failed to land a jab in six of the 12 rounds, landed 56 shots in total, and the 152 punches he threw in the fight as a whole were the fewest for a 12-round bout in data-cruncher CompuBox’s entire 40-year history. “Canelo” won, but it was one of the most forgettable fights of the modern age.

That same weekend, Devin Haney and Jose Ramirez combined to produce one of the most boring bouts in boxing history, throwing a total of 503 punches between them — the sixth-fewest for a 12-round bout, per CompuBox. Haney earned the decision on the scorecards.

Shakur Stevenson, meanwhile, has routinely faced criticisms that his performances against Robson Conceicao, Edwin de los Santos and Artem Harutyunyan over the past three years were tiresome, despite a winning result each time.

It is perhaps this ongoing trend that prompted the sport’s chief financier, Turki Alalshikh, to implore boxers to fight with more positive intent.

“I don’t want to see any more Tom and Jerry-type boxing matches where one fighter is running around the ring, and the other is chasing him,” Alalshikh proclaimed to his 7.1 million followers on X last week. “We can longer support these kinds of fights.”

While volume punchers like William Zepeda, Jesse Rodriguez and David Benavidez will presumably be exempt, together with knockout punchers like Naoya Inoue, Daniel Dubois and Gervonta Davis who also maximize excitement, Alalshikh’s sentiment puts defensive maestros in a predicament.

CompuBox rates some defensive wizards in boxing like Chris Eubank Jr., Dmitry Bivol and Terence Crawford, who typically limit their opponents to 6.5 punches landed per round, 6.8, and 7.7, respectively.

But they do this while also exhibiting an exquisite attack.

It is time we add IBF super lightweight champion Hitchins to that list — especially after he finished George Kambosos Jr. in style.

As CompuBox notes in data it sent to Uncrowned for this feature, Hitchins has been posting impressive numbers, both defensively and offensively, through his past four fights.

Courtesy of CompuBox

He’s doubled the weight class average in key metrics at a time when his level of opposition keeps rising.

In his past four bout, Hitchins averaged 34% punch accuracy with his jab (double the division average of 17%), while limiting his opponents to 7.9 punches per round (half the division average), during his wins over Kambosos, Liam Paro, Gustavo Lemos and Jose Zepeda.

Against Kambosos specifically, Hitchins appeared punch perfect, landed his ramrod jab, and showed incredible footwork from the beginning of the fight.

He marked the eye of his Australian opponent, seemed to use less energy and made Kambosos miss before making him pay with power punches thrown from the pocket. He targeted the body, having studied Vasiliy Lomachenko’s gameplan in the Ukrainian’s win over Kambosos last year, and dug his left hand into Kambosos’ ribs again and again.

In the fifth round, the investment to the midsection paid dividends as Kambosos grimaced and reeled backward in pain, as Hitchins laid all kinds of punches onto the chin.

Kambosos tried to give Hitchins work in a mid-fight comeback, but, really, it was the beginning of the end as the American leathered his jaw in the seventh with lunging left hooks thrown from the hip.

A body shot in the eighth, which he had teased throughout the fight, landed with such venom that Kambosos crumpled to the floor. The referee counted him out. It was all over.

Hitchins got only the eighth knockout of his 20-fight career as a pro, his first since 2022, against arguably the biggest name he’s ever been in the ring with.

The victory was a crucial one because it reinforces Hitchins not only as a legitimate world champion, but also as an undefeated American capable of creating significant matches in the 140-pound division — potentially against the likes of his old amateur rival Gary Antuanne Russell, or fellow super lightweight world champion Teofimo Lopez.

Above all, though, it showed that one can still be a defensive master of their craft in boxing, while producing fan-friendly performances that will please even the fiercest of critics. It showed that Hitchins, and other fighters who can box, remain exciting — and have a lot to offer sports and entertainment.

Though it remains to be seen whether Hitchins can repeat his Kambosos masterclass against an even bigger name like Lopez, few may bet against him when considering CompuBox’s notes about Hitchins’ exploits in recent years, which follow a clear theme.

The Kambosos performance, you see, wasn’t an exception.

This is who Hitchins is — a fighter amongst the sweetest of the sport’s new-age scientists.

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