IF THE intensity of Alex Arthur's verbal defiance after his defeat to Nicky Cook in Manchester on Saturday night had been matched by his performance in the ring, then the Edinburgh man would probably have returned home as the WBO super-featherweight champion.
Actions, however, speak far more powerfully than words in boxing. Even Muhammad Ali, the most loquacious sportsman of them all, made his greatest statements with his fists and footwork rather than his lip.
Despite Arthur's protests that the unan
imous points decision against him at the MEN Arena was an injustice, there were few outside the Scot's own camp who saw it that way.
He paid the price for a tentative start to the contest which allowed Cook to establish a generally effective pattern of boxing on the back foot. The Dagenham man's tactics were well considered and intelligently carried out.
His right hand was a consistently scoring punch and almost certainly the key to him building up a winning lead on the scorecards. Arthur's best work was never sustained, even though he looked more than capable of stopping Cook on the sporadic occasions he did move into top gear.
The margin of two of the three judges' scorecards in favour of Cook, 117-112 and 117-111 from Roy Francis and Dave Parris respectively, did appear excessively wide. The third tally of 115-114 for Cook from Terry O'Connor was more realistic and matched this correspondent's own scoring of the contest.
"I really thought I won it," insisted Arthur. "A fighter knows if he has won or lost a fight and I truly believe in my heart I won that fight. I could see shock on people's faces at ringside when the decision was announced. I felt I was controlling the fight. I thought Nicky was gassed in the later rounds, he was backing away all the time and didn't want to trade. He just ran away in the last two rounds. We had three English judges and I really feel they robbed me of the title tonight."
Arthur did concede that his performance was not as incisive as it could have been and believes he now needs to become more active if he is to re-ignite a career which is certainly at a crossroads.
"I was rusty," he admitted. "I hadn't fought since last December and nine months out of the ring is a long time. I was sluggish, I didn't feel sharp, but I was still much stronger than Nicky. I need to be more active, I need to be making the weight more regularly."
Arthur remains determined to stay in the super-featherweight division and his request for an immediate rematch with Cook brought a positive response from promoter Frank Warren who suggested it could go ahead on the 6 December date he had originally earmarked for the winner to face Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera.
There are other attractive contests available for Arthur if he opts to move up to the lightweight division, including a return with his arch-rival Michael Gomez or a meeting with Amir Khan who must also go back to the drawing board after his stunning first-round loss to Breidis Prescott on the Manchester show.
"I would love a rematch with Nicky and I can stay at super-featherweight because I had no problem making the weight this time," said Arthur.
"I'm hurting a lot right now, but I'll go home and gather my thoughts before starting again."
It was hard not to sympathise with Cook on Saturday night as the crowning moment of his career was overshadowed by both the angry reaction of the Arthur camp and the general atmosphere of shock which hung over the MEN Arena in the wake of Khan's spectacular demise.
"What's wrong, it's like a morgue in here?" asked the understandably jubilant Cook when he entered the media conference afterwards, unaware that some of Khan's family and friends were in tears in a corner of the room.
Cook, who had failed in a previous bid to become a world champion when well beaten by American Steven Luevano for the WBO's featherweight title, felt the strategy worked out by his father and trainer Paul were fully vindicated by his success against Arthur. "We came with a gameplan, to keep Alex at range and keep him at arm's length," said the 28-year-old.
"I did that for 12 rounds and have no doubts I deserved to win. I was confident I was ahead going into the closing stages. I thought I was winning the fight comfortably. In the last couple of rounds, I just made sure I boxed sensibly and didn't get over-excited. We kept it simple and it paid off and I'm a world champion now.
"Alex is a fantastic boxer and I didn't realise how strong he would be. He rocked me a couple of times, but I felt 100 times better boxing at super-feather than I did at feather."
Warren's talents as a promoter and matchmaker will now be tested to the full if Arthur is to be re-established as a credible force at world level. "We've got a lot to talk about," said Warren.
"Alex thought he won the fight, but the result is what it is. It was a good fight to watch and Nicky's work rate was good early on. I thought Alex came on stronger at the end but he let it slip away in the early rounds.
"He has to decide what he wants to do now, but there are still good fights for him at whatever weight he chooses."
The full article contains 946 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
