If we recall the meeting between Raimonds Antonovics and Joseph Fox on the Zloty Tur, we can note a very easy victory for Antonovics. After this victory and the assurance that Raimond brought an even better shape, it seemed that domination would be total throughout all six rounds. But as we noticed, despite the score, Joseph was in obviously better condition than he was on Zloty Tur, and it was very close to Raimonds.

In fact, the first three rounds were very close, there was no significant dominance of Antonovics. Moreover, Joseph Fox pointed out the obvious weaknesses of the Latvian, namely, the insufficient strength of the wrist. It was most noticeable in the first round after Raimonds tried to fight by curling the wrist and pulling diagonally. But Antonovics’ wrist pushed against the stretch of the Canadian athlete and even slightly failed, which made Raimonds come back and try to pull the opponent straight on himself, during which he got a foul. It should be noted that Raimonds had an excellent understanding of the situation at the table: realizing that there was not enough power, he changed the attack vector and turned on the stretch and pronation to the maximum. This allowed him to win at the center and go through the opponent’s wrist, but further fights were delayed. The Latvian could not turn off Joseph's pronation with his wrist, and Fox had the opportunity to defend himself very successfully, because he restrained the opponent’s attacks not only with his elbow ligament, but also with flexor muscles.

After three exhausting rounds for rivals, Antonovics orientated himself very successfully, rebuilt and finished the match with an attack in triceps. It is also worth noting the fifth round, in which adequate understanding the opponent’s actions played an important role. Joseph put his hand very low and in the most obvious way planned to go into a deep deep hook, which is quite effective against the standard toproll technique that the Latvian showed during previous fights. But Antonovics, having noticed this, regrouped and blocked the place where Fox planned to attack.

In the last round, we saw the domination that was expected from Raimonds before the start of the fight. But this did not happen because Raimonds found the magic key in the last round, but because the Canadian fought to the limit of their capabilities, having no backup options, while Raimonds turned out to be more versatile and much more technically prepared.

It was a versatile struggle and an excellent understanding of the situation that brought a victory to Raimond Antonovics. This fight showed: if Raymond can strengthen his hand and add a little to the power, it will be a very dangerous rival for most participants of the Top 8 to 95 kg. At the same time, we saw what kind of progress Joseph Fox was able to show in a short time, and we will look forward to his performance on the Zloty Tur 2020.