LONDON – Callum Simpson successfully defended his Commonwealth super-middleweight title by clinically stopping Elvis Ahorgah in five rounds.
What was threatening to become a difficult contest at London’s Wembley Arena suddenly ended one minute and 53 seconds into the fifth round when a right-left combination dropped the 24-year-old Ahorgah for the first time and he struggled to recover.
Simpson had made the first defense of his British and Commonwealth titles as recently as January 11, when he required only two rounds to stop Steed Woodall.
The cancellation of Viddal Riley-Isaac Chamberlain, owing to an injury suffered by Chamberlain, left the promoters Boxxer seeking a replacement fight as the chief support to Adam Azim-Sergey Lipinets, and on account of his early evening against Woodall, Simpson was identified and matched with the Ghanaian.
Simpson, perhaps encouraged by his advantage in speed, set an admirable pace from the opening bell. Ahorgah’s wild swings were a reflection of both his technical limitations and ambition, but as often as he missed the 28-year-old champion during the opening round he caught him, including with a left hand that quickly reddened Simpson’s face.
A straight left then caught Simpson in the second, but Simpson responded with a right hook and then further punches to both head and body. He ducked another wild left hand from Ahorgah, who he then watched over-reach with a right hand and who then caught him with a right from close range to back him up towards the ropes.
Amid his struggles to keep Ahorgah at range, Simpson took another right hand on the inside in the third. He regardless continued to outwork his opponent by prioritising his jab, but showed the signs of the fight he was enduring when swelling appeared by his right eye.
It was a right hand from close range in the fifth round that noticeably hurt Ahorgah, and Simpson capitalized by ending the fight then and there. He followed that right hand with a right-left combination that dropped Ahorgah, who until then had appeared durable, and who waited until the stroke of 10 to return to his feet – at which point the referee Howard Foster intervened.
Moldova’s Aurel Ignat had by then required only one minute and 53 seconds overall to stop Scott Forrest and inflict the first defeat of Forrest’s career.
Boxxer’s Ben Shalom had just days earlier spoke of his faith in Forrest, who after absorbing a right hand, felt a left hook buckle his knees that forced him to retreat to the ropes and then the corner, from where Ignat landed further left and right hands, and from where the damage caused by two lefts forced the intervention of the referee.
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