Abbey Shocks Boxing Fans

Abbey (left) leaves his opponent Ernest Amuzu sprawling on the canvas after one of his devastating punches.

A kickboxer, Stephen Abbey, became a rare breed in Ghana last Saturday when he abandoned the kick aspect of the sport and pummeled compatriot Ernest Amuzu in 10 rounds to win their West Africa super-middleweight boxing contest at the Lebanon House in Accra.

It was supposed to have been a championship bout, but various factors, including an injury to Amuzu’s right arm, forced organisers to reduce the fight to a 10-round contest on a bill staged by Landmark Promotions and dubbed ‘Opportunity One’.

Yet, only a few would have placed a bet on Abbey who entered the fight with a 5-1 record. But after his right hook sent the former national amateur boxer tumbling onto the canvas in just the second round, the seriousness of his challenge might have dawned on the doubting lot.

It was then that the Lebanon House rose to life by midnight, with an unfancied quantity in the frame of Abbey dictating affairs against the highly-favoured Amuzu who had dealt ruthlessly with all nine previous opponents in the professional rungs, scoring nine knockout wins in those fights.

In July this year, Abbey won the World Kickboxing Federation (WKF) middleweight title in Austria, a feat he had sacrificed his boxing talent for when he began training with some friends along the beaches in some gyms where the action was not limited to the use of the fists.

“I was not getting fights, so when I was introduced to kickboxing, I embraced it fully. But I am not quitting kickboxing. Anytime I am called upon to defend my title, I will do so,” he said.

If it appeared an aberration, the unfolding episode was aided by Amuzu’s inability to use his right hand apart from holding it up as a guard.

“I hurt my arm at training, but I didn’t want to mess up the bill.

I didn’t feel it was a serious injury until I entered the fight which was a more competitive encounter than all that happened at training,” Amuzu told Graphic Sports after the fight.

His fine looks hardly portraying the pain of boxing, Amuzu fought gamely from the third round, using his left jabs to great effect as he managed to slow Abbey’s aggression.

But the contest had been wrapped up already in the mind of Abbey, who survived his own obvious exhaustion to turn the final rounds into his own.

In other fights, Ghanaian super flyweight, Gabriel Odoi Laryea, recovered from an early dominance by Nigerian Yakubu Kareem to earn a drawn verdict in their international contest as Laryea pushed his record to 9-2-1, while Isaac Nettey was awarded a first round TKO victory over Aminu Turkson in their bantamweight contest.

Maxwell Awuku clinched a fifth round TKO victory over John Larbi when Larbi failed to answer the fifth round bell in their lightweight contest, while Rafael Mensah defeated David Arday Cudjoe by a unanimous points verdict in their super featherweight contest.