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 Neequaye (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 – fourth round 40-36 twice and 39-37 all in favor of Mchunu; and at the end of the eighth round the scores announced were 80-72, 79-73 and 77-73 in favor of 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 the bell for the ninth round.
–supersport
