Jaipur: Vijender Singh beat Ernest Amuzu to win his 10th successive pro boxing bout in Jaipur on December 23. In the process, he retained his WBO Oriental and Asia Pacific Super middleweight titles. Amuzu came to the match with an impressive 23-2 record with 0 knockouts to his name. That stat remained intact as, despite receiving blows, the Ghanaian remained on his feet, something that Vijender Singh seemed to appreciate while touching gloves with his opponent after the last match.
Vijender delayed his attack, choosing to take the pragmatic route in the first two rounds. While both were cautious in the first round, Amuzu was the comparitive aggressor. In fact, the Ghanaian may lay claim to the first round as he managed a few significant punches to his opponent’s face. The second and the third round remained even contests but Vijender took control after that.
In the sixth round, it became clear that the former Olympic bronze medalist is the only logical winner in this contest. He landed some hard punches on Amuzu’s rib-cage to take control of the bout. Amuzu returned the favor with a few of his own, but the West African Boxing Union Middleweight champion could not sustain the tempo against Vijender.
A flurry of punches followed from Vijender that was followed by two strong jabs to Amuzu’s jaws. At the time, it looked like Vijender might just become the first to knock out Amuzu. But that was not the case and the Ghanaian admirably stayed on his feet. But he started committing technical blunders after that and was walking into traps set by Vijender, who, in the final rounds maintained his distance and took advantage of his longer reach. After the end of the 10th round, it was a unanimous, but hardly surprising decision from the judges – Vijender Singh had won his 10th successive pro bout. In other under-card bouts of the day, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Amandeep Singh defeated Punjab’s Manoj Kumar. Kuldeep Dhanda beat Fateh Singh, Pradeep Kharera got the better of Nikhil Sharma, while Dharmender Grewal beat Harsh Nagar.
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