Don King’s Boxing Night : The world champion in the first heavy weight (up to 90.7 kg) according to the WBC version, the Congolese Ilunga Makabu defeated the South African Tabiso Mchunu. The second meeting of the boxers turned out to be even more competitive than the first and ended with a separate decision of the judges. MK-Sport tells in detail about the atmosphere of the fight and the prospects for the champion.
The whole idea of Don King turned out to be frankly strange with the signing of Ilungi Makabu and organizing a fight for him in the USA. The Congolese and his rival South African Tabiso Mchunu are far from simple guys in the first heavyweight division. They repeatedly created sensations , but now an inexperienced viewer who accidentally turned on the broadcast would not even understand that he was facing a fight for the world title. However, the Americans can be understood, because this division has never enjoyed honor in the United States.
Don King badges gleamed all over the hall at Packard Music Hall, but the arena could hold no more than two and a half thousand fans. Which directly did not correspond to the status of the battle. And given the many empty seats, it seemed that no one told the locals that the winner of this meeting has every chance to fight Saul Alvarez .
Complementing the terrible atmosphere and the undercard, which was more reminiscent of the boxing shows “REN-TV” than professional boxing in its purest form. In any case, the “promising” 32-year-old heavyweight Trevor Bryan , who resembled Vyacheslav Datsik in all dimensions , only defeated his little-known opponent by a split decision. In Russia, Vladimir Khryunov can rejoice, now he is on the same level in terms of the quality of fights with Don King .
The very meeting of Makabu and Mchunu did not much resemble the battle of seven years ago. If Ilunga proved to be true to his tactics and actively pressed his opponent, Tabiso this time abandoned the idea of working at a distance and relied on wearing down his opponent.
These actions of the South African for some time turned out to be a small surprise for the champion, who only from the second round began to nail the meeting to his hands. However, Mchunu’s actions still continued to pose a threat.
He took the fifth round when he landed two clean backhands, but he didn’t have enough punching power to shake Makaba. But Mchunu still lost the first half of the meeting, although seven years ago at this distance he was one wicket stronger than his opponent.
In the next rounds, the initiative passed from one boxer to another, and already in the end Tabiso was good, regularly outperforming his opponent. But he met the final gong with a sour expression on his face. It is very significant that Makabu threw his hands up and immediately began to thank his opponent, but Mchunu immediately pushed the Congolese away, realizing that he had not worked out enough to win.
The opinion of the judges was divided. Premonitions did not deceive the South American, the reigning champion again won. Judging scores: 115-113, 113-115, 116-112. But considering how many problems Mchunu managed to deliver to him, Alvarez must now rush to conquer the new division with a vengeance.
Perhaps only Alexei Papin will not be satisfied with such a situation, because he will have to be in the status of a contender for the WBC title for at least another year.
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