Singh fights hard to become WBO Asia Pacific Super Middleweight champion beating Hope in 10 rounds
Vijender Singh's incredible pro-boxing career scaled new heights here on Saturday as he secured his maiden WBO Asia Pacific Super Middleweight Championship title after a hard fought 10-round battle over the former WBC European Champion Kerry hope.
The Indian notched a 98-92, 98-92, 100-90 score to become the unanimous winner against Welsh-born Australian.
Even before the final announcement was made, lee Beard lifted Vijender in joy.
"It's not about myself, it's about my nation, my country," Vijender said after being crowned winner.
Despite the match being the longest in Vijender's seven-match professional career, the 6-foot Haryana boxer was always in the ascendency. This was Vijender’s 7th fight, all of his fights have been knockout except this one.
Vijender started the first round cautiously to get a measure of his opponent. Despite being on the defensive Vijender produced few hefty blows, much to delight of the crowd. Notably a blow to Kerry's head at the end of the first round, made the Australian take a second breather before getting back into the fray.
The second round continued in the same fashion. The Beijing Olympic bronze medallist also looked relatively comfortable in defending the left-handed Australian's punches.
In the third round, Hope did get a cherry of the bite by landing a jab into Vijender's head, which immediately changed the crowd's reaction. However, the 30-year-old did not seem to be affected by it much and got back into the action like before.
Notably, in the fourth round Vijender cornered Kerry and delivered a host of punches. As a result Hope was opened up under right eye.
The bout went into the sixth round — the longest till date in Vijender's short pro-boxing career. However, the Indian did not seem to tire away as he continued to deliver timely blows.
Then Vijender produced two big punches to Kerry's face in the round, but the Australian, who already has 30 bouts experience, hanged on and did not give in just yet.
In the eight round, Vijender delivered a strong right handed punch into Kerry's face and produced couple of more punches to the Australian's face just before the end of the round, but hope managed to cling on.
Vijender then edged towards victory, cornering Kerry towards the corner flag and delivered a host of punches.
Kerry did not give it up as the bout went into the final round. However, Vijender saw it through to win his maiden title.
The day not just belonged to Vijender as the crowd at Thyagaraj Sports Complex Stadium also witnessed other bouts.
In another title bout, Haryana's Dilbag Singh faced Maharashtra's Siddharth Verma in the India IBC Super Welterweight Championship Title.
After a evenly contested match, the eight-round contest came to life in the fifth round, when Siddarth cornered Dilbag and delivered some might blows to the Haryana boxer's head. Dilbag did manage to return the favour with some hefty blows, but the further the round progressed Siddarth grew more and more in confidence and had Dilbag where he wanted and won the title.
Earlier, in another anticipated clash of the day, Sanjeev Sahota defeated Vikas lohan in the international super lightweight contest.
In the first bout of the day, Asif Khan defeated Sachin by unanimous decision in the Super Bantamweight category.
Then Sunil Siwach of India produced the other knock out of the day by beating Thailand's Vachayan Khamon in the international Super Bantamweight Indo-Thai six rounds contest. The next bout between Gaganpreet Sharma and Deepak Sheoran in the light heavyweight six rounds interstate contest was not such a straight forward one.
In a hotly contested battle, Punjab's Gaganpreet edged out Delhi's Deepak via unanimous decision. In the heavyweight six rounds interstate contest, Sumit Rangi of Haryana defeated Delhi's Naveen Rao by another unanimous decision.
In the day's first India-Australia clash, it was the the Australian Cameroon who beat home favourite Devdarshan by unanimous decision in the super welterweight category.
In yet another Indo-Thai contest between India's Kuldeep Dhanda and Vachayan Khamon of Thailand, the home favourite Kuldeep came out on top through an unanimous decision in the six round international light weight contest. After their cameo appearance, Boichang and Nengneihat — both from Imphal — contested in Mary Kom boxing foundation special bout. Nengneihat won the contest by unanimous decision.