Phillip Przybylo

Another Dominant Defense for WBU Champ Noah Zuhdi

Another Dominant Defense for WBU Champ Noah Zuhdi

Fighting in humidity that might have made the NBA Finals jealous, WBU Lightweight Champion Noah Zuhdi successfully defended his crown Friday night after challenger Eduardo Pereira dos Reis yielded to battered ribs and quit on his stool after the fourth round. The TKO victory at OKC Downtown Airpark in Oklahoma City marks Zuhdi’s second defense of the title, but perhaps more importantly, another aced test as he graduates to the upper echelon of the 135-pound class.

The roughhouse battle was not an ideal one for Zuhdi (18-1, 14 KOs) as the crafty Reis (13-2, 8 KOs) was warned but never penalized for headbutts throughout the affair. Every clinch seemed to end in controversial fashion as Reis attempted to get inside Zuhdi’s head by using his own. Undeterred, the champion and his trainer, Dickie Wood, adjusted to the uneven pace set by the challenger.

Noah Zuhdi Blasts Vajda in Two, Retains Title

zuhdi vajda pic 2In front of a packed house last night at the Lucky Star Casino in Oklahoma, WBU Lightweight Champion Noah Zuhdi did not disappoint the partisan crowd as he knocked out clever counter-puncher Gyula Vajda in the second round to defend his championship.

Zuhdi (17-1, 13 KOs) came out strong and Vajda (12-4, 8 KOs) came out stubborn in the first stanza. In a lightening quick exchange in the center of the ring, Zuhdi followed up a jab with a thudding straight right, right as Vajda was trying to counter. The flash knockdown seem to only wake the Hungarian up, however. Vajda began fighting at a heightened sense and temporarily stunned Zuhdi with a counter left that the champion described as “the second hardest I’ve ever been hit with.”

Noah Zuhdi: In a Fight for Respect

zuhdi vajda picWhen WBU Lightweight Champion Noah Zuhdi (16-1, 12 KOs) steps in the ring against Hungarian challenger Gyula Vajda (12-3, 8 KOs) on August 24 at the Lucky Star Casino, he is not just fighting a sharp counterpuncher in his first title defense. He is fighting the litany of naysayers and people who subscribe to an archaic notion that a boxer has to be born and act a certain way in order to thrive in the sport.

We know what real fighters are. Fighters are not practicing lawyers or attorneys. Fighters do not start training in their twenties. Fighters do not grow up geographically and socioeconomically in middle America. And certainly real fighters do not video chat with a wife and infant son every night while in training camp. Yet, Zuhdi is and does all of these things, and he has fought his way to the fringes of boxing stardom.

“Nobody has to fight,” Zuhdi told Eastside before his bout with the tall and crafty Vajda. “No matter what your background is, no one has to get beat up like a boxer does or train as diligently as a boxer does.