By Ron Jackson
In a battle of southpaws, Thabiso Mchunu gained revenge and added the African Boxing Union cruiserweight title to his South African cruiserweight crown when he completely outclassed Tommy Oosthuizen to score a unanimous 12 round points decision, in their return match, at Emperors Palace near Kempton Park on Saturday night.
Oosthuizen only shared one round on my scorecard as judge’s John Shipanuka (Zambia) and Michael Neaquay (Ghana) scored 119-109 and 119-111 and the third judge Simon Mokadi (South Africa) handed in a card of 118-111.
In terms of the Africa Boxing Union rules the scores were announced after the fourth and eighth rounds respectively, which read – 4th round 40-36 twice and 39-37 all in favour of Mchunu; and at the end of the 8th round the scores announced were 80-72, 79-73 and 77-73 in favour Mchunu.
This clearly showed the dominance of Mchunu who scored to the body and jolted Oosthuizen’s head back on numerous occasions throughout the fight.
The sluggish and slow moving Oosthuizen (90.45kg) never got into the fight as he only landed a few clean scoring punches, and held on in the last two rounds as Mchunu (90.55kg) emerged a clear and popular winner.
Mchunu improved his record to 20-5-12 and Oosthuizen’s record dropped to 28-2-2; 16.
Even though they are from the same stable fans now want Mchunu to go in against IBO champion Kevin Lerena.
MBENGE RETAINS IBO BELT
In a competent and controlled performance South Africa’s Thulani Mbenge (66.10kg) retained his IBO welterweight belt for the first time against the No. 32 ranked rather shop-worn Mexican, Miguel Vasquez (66.30kg) who did not come out at the bell for the tenth round.
Vasquez 40-7; 15 a former IBF lightweight champion was never in the fight and was in survival mode throughout the rounds before Mbenge punished him with a series of punches and dropped him against the ropes with a right to the body just before bell for ninth round.
Vasquez managed to beat the count but was in no condition to come out for the tenth round.
DLAMINI WINS SA TITLE IN 42 SECONDS
In one of the shortest title fights in the history of South African boxing the veteran Walter Dlamini (72.30kg) smashed defending champion Wade Groth to defeat in 42 seconds of the first round.
Within seconds of the opening round Dlamini 16-6-4; 8 backed Groth 7-1; 5 up against the ropes in the neutral corner and landed a barrages of lefts and rights, jolting his head back on his shoulders as he crashed to the canvas where referee Jaap van Nieuwenhuizen waved the fight off as the champion was badly hurt.
OTHER RESULTS: Junior-bantamweight Ricardo Malajika, W tko 1, Tebego Makwala; Heavyweight: Keaton Gomes, W tko 3, Warren Le Roux; Junior-middleweight: Boyd Allen, W tko 3, Wynand Mulder.
The Box and Dine tournmaent was presented to a full house by Rodney Berman of Golden Gloves.