Having won the European bantamweight championship, Charlie Edwards focused on world honors and said he would like to head to Japan to take on the best fighters in his division.
Edwards dethroned Thomas Essomba (13-9-1, 4 KOs), a Cameroonian who fights out of Sheffield, England, by scores of 117-111, 116-112 and 118-111 in a brisk and hard-fought affair at York Hall at Bethnal Green in London’s East End on Friday.
The world titles are held by the quartet of Junto Nakatani, Takuma Inoue, Ryosuke Nishida and Yoshiki Takei.
“I’m a real champion. I want to fight champions,” said the winner. “That puts me in a very good position. Mr. Honda, I’d like to come out there and fight one of your champions.”
Edwards also wore a T-shirt post-fight with Paul Butler on it, and called out the Liverpool fighter, who is trained by Joe Gallagher, Edwards’ former trainer, with whom the fighter said he has a personal issue.
Former WBC flyweight champion Edwards (20-1, 7 KOs) won a contest that had been billed as a “Family Feud” because Charlie’s brother, Sunny, manages Essomba.
The opening session was cagey. An Edwards right hand might have been the best shot of the round, but an Essomba flurry could have caught the judges’ eyes.
Edwards was busier in the second. Essomba timed him with a counter left near the end, but otherwise the champion had not done enough to take the round.
The challenger switched stances in the third, but he landed good right hands from the orthodox stance, firstly an uppercut and then a straight shot – although the Englishman had picked up a swelling under his right eye.
Edwards’ hand speed had Essomba reluctant to throw, certainly little more than ones and twos, and Edwards was defensively sound, exiting left or right and remaining out of harm’s way, having raided successfully to score points.
Essomba landed a left a minute into the fifth, but Edwards was switched on, maintained his shape and threw back with more vigor and volume.
Still, Essomba had his moments in the sixth. He wasn’t ready to cede his title and he seemed to grow stronger and more controlled as the fight wore on. By the end of the ninth, he had found Edwards with several right hands.
Neither was in charge of the 10th, and it seemed the result would hang in the balance through the championship rounds. Edwards was not as accurate or poised as he had been earlier. Essomba – a two-time Olympian – had started to locate him with more shots in the shape of left hands from the southpaw stance and rights when set up as orthodox.
Although Edwards had a good spell near the end of the 11th, it seemed the fight could go either way.
Essomba’s corner called for “smart pressure” before the last. Stephen Smith gave an attentive Charlie Edwards his final instructions. Edwards was the sharper of the pair in the last session, and both boxers celebrated victory at the final bell.
But the night belonged to Edwards.
A counter right hand in Round 2 saw baby-faced Tom Welland (5-0, 2 KOs), from Wickford, Essex, England, establish control against Spain-based Nicaraguan Darwing Martinez (8-23-2, 6 KOs). Martinez went down a first time from that shot, was dropped under pressure to the body moments later and was felled a third and final time by a left hook, flush in the face. Referee Amy Pugh stopped the bout after 2:31 of the second.
London super middleweight Germaine Brown (14-3, 5 KOs) scored a third-round right-hand win over Grant Dennis (18-8, 3 KOs), from Chatham in Kent, England. Dennis was down in the second, and the same shot had the same effect early in the third. Dennis punched the floor several times in disappointment, but the referee didn’t like the way he gingerly made it back to his feet and called the fight off.
Guildford’s Joel Bartell (7-1, 4 KOs) broke down Czech Republic’s squat puncher Nikolas Dzurnak (7-8-2, 6 KOs) for a fifth-round win.
Dzurnak was aggressive early, but Bartell – with Mark and Jimmy Tibbs in his corner – started to work out his timing and distance as the fight wore on. Dzurnak complained after taking a couple of low right uppercuts in the fourth, and he was given time to recover. However, Bartell was raking him with big shots in the fifth, and a left to the body spelt the end of Dzurnak’s night. He made it back to his feet but soon returned to his haunches, and he was tended to on his stool after 2 minutes and 27 seconds of the session.
Junior lightweight Danny Boardman (2-0), of Epsom, England, won every round of four and found some time for plenty of showboating along the way, often switching stances, in a defeat of Yin Caicedo (10-22-4), a Colombian based in Spain, by 40-36. Caicedo already has his next three fights in his diary, according to BoxRec.
Canterbury’s Brandan Olbrechts (7-0, 2 KOs) won every round of six against Brayan Mairena (15-47-1, 9 KOs), born in Nicaragua but fighting out of Spain, earning victory with a 60-54 scorecard.
Darlington’s Hannah Robinson (1-0) won an entertaining show opener with a free-swinging six-round victory over Laura Reoyo (2-2), from Madrid, Spain, by 59-55.
Popular London light heavyweight debutant Hasnan Ali was stopped in just 40 seconds by Doncaster southpaw Tommy Sams (4-0). Ali was never off his feet but took a big left hand early on and was hurt and under heavy fire when the referee intervened.
Read the full article here
