Herbie Hide vs Willi Fischer

Two-time WBO champion Herbie Hide retained his heavyweight championship with a second-round stoppage of Germany’s Willi Fischer at the Sports Village in Norwich on September 26, 1998. Hide weighed 220lb and Fischer 231lb for the scheduled 12-round contest, which Joe Cortez refereed. Fischer was the mandatory challenger and entered with a record of 21-1-1, while Hide was 30-1 and making the second defence of the title he had regained by stopping Tony Tucker in two rounds in June 1997. All three judges, Dave Parris, Andre Van Grootenbruel and Bill Lerch, scored the opening round 10-9 for Hide.

Hide had first won the WBO title by stopping Michael Bentt in seven rounds in 1994 before losing it to Riddick Bowe the following year. His second reign had begun with the victory over Tucker in Norwich, followed by a 52-second stoppage of Damon Reed in Manchester. By the time Fischer arrived, Hide had put together a sequence of rapid finishes, and his principal assets remained his hand speed and punching accuracy, unusual qualities for a heavyweight. Fischer, a former Olympian from Frankfurt, had done almost all of his professional work in Germany and possessed few victories over opponents of international standing. Contemporary reports regarded him as fundamentally competent but plainly the outsider.

Hide used the first round largely to study the challenger. He moved lightly, looked for openings and did not force the pace. Fischer kept a sound guard and, for at least three minutes, appeared capable of making the champion work. The surroundings were less impressive than the championship billing: the 5,000-seat Sports Village was not full, and rainwater leaked through the roof during the contest. A few hundred German supporters had made the trip to Norfolk, but there was little in the opening round to give them cause for alarm beyond Hide’s superior speed.

The fight changed immediately at the start of the second. Hide stepped forward with greater intent and landed a straight right followed by a left hook which dropped Fischer. The challenger rose quickly and appeared more surprised than badly hurt, but Hide gave him no time to settle. Fischer attempted to smother the champion and bundled him to the canvas while trying to gain a few extra seconds, but the respite was brief. Once they were upright again, Hide attacked at once, and another left hook put Fischer down for the second time.

Fischer again regained his feet, but by then Hide had measured the distance and was punching with complete confidence. Moments later, another hook caught the challenger cleanly and sent him to the canvas for the third time in the round. Under the WBO’s three-knockdown rule, Cortez was obliged to terminate the contest. The official time was 1 minute 4 seconds of the second round. There was no protest of consequence, and no question that Fischer had been overmatched once Hide increased his pace.

The victory was Hide’s 31st as a professional and his 30th inside the distance. It also marked a fourth consecutive contest in which he had finished his opponent inside two rounds. Promoter Frank Warren, staging his 100th world title fight, immediately renewed talk of a meeting between Hide and WBC champion Lennox Lewis, who was defending his own title against Zeljko Mavrovic in Connecticut later the same evening. Hide also spoke confidently about Lewis after watching that contest, but contemporary observers remained sceptical. Fischer had offered little resistance, and the ease of the victory did not establish how Hide would fare against the leading heavyweights of the division.

For Hide, however, there was nothing unsatisfactory about the manner of the defence. He had taken a round to assess Fischer, recognised the openings and finished the contest cleanly as soon as he chose to press. Fischer’s brief attempt to clinch and slow the attack failed, and Hide’s speed prevented him from recovering between knockdowns. It proved to be Hide’s last successful defence of the WBO championship. His next title appearance came nine months later, when Vitali Klitschko stopped him in the second round in London and ended his second reign.

This was a poor excuse for a world heavyweight title fight. God knows what the Americans must have been thinking while watching this. Fischer should never have been in there in the first place, and Hide made it look easy because it was easy.

You only have to look at Fischer’s record before the fight. He’d built up plenty of wins in Germany, but there was nothing there to suggest he was ready to challenge a genuine world-class heavyweight. Then suddenly he’s standing across from Herbie Hide with a world title on the line. That tells you plenty about the WBO heavyweight scene at the time.

Hide did what he was supposed to do. He took a round to look, then stepped on the gas in the second, and Fischer fell apart. The difference in hand speed was ridiculous. Hide could get the right hand and left hook there before Fischer had even organised himself defensively, and once the first knockdown came, there was no resistance.

Three knockdowns and it was finished. No drama, no tactical battle, nothing really learned about Hide.

Hide had genuine ability; I’d seen it in sparring sessions with Harry Senior. He was fast, sharp and could punch. That’s why nights like this did him no favours. Beating Fischer proved absolutely nothing about how he matched up with Lennox Lewis or the best heavyweights around.

It was a world-title fight in name, but not in quality.