By Ron Jackson
A confident looking Thulani Mbenge of South Africa’s coming into the ring without his customary dreadlocks gave a polished performance when he stopped Diego Gabriel Chaves from Argentina in the seventh round to win the vacant IBO welterweight belt at Emperors Palace near Kempton Park on Saturday night.
The 32-year-old Chavez (66.20kg) who is listed at No. 28 in the most recent IBO ratings came out fast in the opening round throwing lefts and rights to his much taller opponent and did enough to possible shade the round. Mbenge, 26, showing maturity beyond his short time in the professional ranks let the older and vastly more experienced at world level Chaves come forward throwing lefts and rights to the body through rounds two to five.
However, both fighters were missing badly and throwing wild punches at times with Chaves possibly beginning to tire badly at the end of round five.
In round six the more confident Mbenge began to control the exchanges and dropped Chaves with a right to the jaw for a count.
Early in round seven Mbenge sent Chaves down flat on face with another big right hand and referee Deon Dwarte who once again did a competent job picked up the count, but realising that Chaves was badly hurt waved the fight off at 36 seconds into the round as the towel came into the ring from the Chaves corner.
Mbenge improved his record to 14-9, 11 KOs, and Chaves’ record dropped 26-4-1, 22 KOs.
MCHUNU WINS IN SIX
South Africa’s Thabiso Mchunu (90.40kg) smashed a rather inept Ricards Bolotnik (89.40kg) who did not come to fight, to defeat at 2 minutes 22 seconds into the sixth round.
After quiet opening round the much smaller Mchunu 19-4; 12 did most of the work as Bolotnik from Latvia did nothing more than walking forward with his gloves against his face, pushing holding and mauling through rounds two to five.
In the sixth round a big left hand from the southpaw Mchunu dropped Bolotnik 11-5-1; 5 flat on his face.
He managed to beat the count but shortly afterwards after a barrage of rights and lefts from Mchunu a chopping blow to the back of the head sent Boltnik down again as referee Simon Mokadi stepped in to wave the fight off.
OTHER RESULTS
Junior featherweight: Ayabonga Sonjika, W ko 1, Tumelo Maksane; Middleweight: Wade Groth, won pts 6, Andile Mntungwa; Super-middleweight: Rowan Campbell, W tko 8, Malkhaz Sujashvili, tko 8.
The tournament was presented by Rodney Berman of Golden Gloves Promotions.