Lee McAllister won the vacant WBO Africa Zone Championship with a fourth-round knockout of Ghana’s Richmond Djarbeng.
The bout was the headliner on the LET BATTLE COMMENCE IV event that took place at the Northern Hotel in Aberdeen on Saturday 29th May 2021.
Fifty lucky fans were ringside to watch, as LET BATTLE COMMENCE IV was the first boxing ‘test’ event in Scotland, which hopefully will lead to more fans, preferably up to full capacity, being able to attend boxing events from next month as the pandemic restrictions are relaxed further.
More tuned in to watch the live and free to view the Globally broadcast event on FITE, VIVA LIVE, PPV LIVE as well as the numerous digital and linear channels that also carried the live broadcast.
There wasn’t that much action initially in the first round, so much so that referee Roger Barnor stepped in and ‘encouraged’ the protagonists to stop tentatively testing and throw some real punches in anger, which they did in style during the dying seconds of the round.
The first minute of the second stanza contained more action than the entire first round, albeit much of it being testing shots, well that is until around mid-point when McAllister burst into action, letting rip with a succession of blistering shots to send Djarbeng down to the canvas.
Djarbeng was able to beat the count and on the restart the ‘Aberdeen Assassin’ calmly strode over and let rip another flurry of scintillating powerful Exocets to body and head to send the Ghanaian to the deck for a second and surely final time – but no, much to everyone’s surprise Djarbeng, who was clearly in a lot of pain, once again managed to make it to his feet before Roger Barnor finished the count.
On the restart once again, McAllister went on the attack, yet somehow Djarbeng managed to survive the onslaught and even let rip with some shots of his own.
Round three was an edgy affair, with both fighters working off their jabs, Djarbeng proved to be quite durable, I for one was surprised when he shrugged off some seriously vicious shots to the head as the round progressed.
The fourth was by far the best round so far, action wise, and once again the Ghanaian showed just how tough he was as once again he survived some seriously powerful shots, to both body and head, that clearly hurt him.
As the round progressed McAllister landed more big shots, after which Djarbeng would grab hold of the increasingly aggressive McAllister. This tactic didn’t do the Ghanaian many favours as the Aberdeen Assassin just kept letting rip and the inevitable happened, Djarbeng crashed to the deck for a third time following a huge right-left combination to the head, this time though Djarbeng just couldn’t rise to his feet and was clearly in a lot of pain. Referee Roger Barnor waived the fight off with just twelve seconds of the round remaining.
WBO Africa’s Samir Captan presented both Championship belts.
