It was a weekend to forget for Kenya boxing as Morris Okolla and Dennis “Bilabong” Okoth lost their respective bouts via technical knockouts.
Police constable Okolla saw his shot at the vacant Africa Boxing Union (ABU) heavyweight fall short when he lost to home boxer Jack Mulowayi in the fourth of the scheduled 12 rounds bout on Saturday night in Kinshasa.
Okolla couldn’t continue after he sustained two deep cuts from accidental head-butts to hand Mulowayi a technical knockout victory.
Okolla now has 11 wins, four losses while Mulowayi stretched his record to nine wins, two losses and a draw.
“I was actually leading from the first round before the accidental butts ruined things for me. I will not lose hope. It’s a title I would like to have. I will focus on preparations since I have another fight in January,” said the 38-year-old Okolla, who is the national heavyweight champion.
Okoth appeared to have lost his mouthpiece in the sixth round after a hook from Reshat Mati in their non-title welterweight bout on Friday night in Florida, USA.
Then Mati would cash in on Bilabong’s state to unleash fierce combinations forcing the referee to call the stoppage a minute and 18 seconds into the sixth round. The bout was scheduled to last eight rounds.
Bilabong’s featured as one of the undercard to Gennadiy “GGG” Golovkin (41-1-1) from Kazakhstan and Kamil Szeremeta (20-1-0) unified International Boxing Federation and International Boxing Organisation World middleweight title bout.
As expected Golovkin dominated the Polish boxer to chalk a seventh round stoppage.
–nation.africa
