17.06.07 – Ajose Olusegun claimed his first title by unanimously out pointing Gary Reid to win the vacant Commonwealth light welterweight title at London’s Crystal Palace on Friday night. The Nigerian born 27 year old was heavily favoured to defeat Reid, a Jamaican born Stoke on Trent resident, but was forced to raise his game to contain his gallant opponent..
Reid, 34, appeared to show his rival excessive respect as Olusegun increasing got through his defence and combined with the favourite’s bewildering speed an early stoppage seemed likely.
Reid survived the early assaults and rallied gamely at the midway point of his most important fight to date and gained many admirers for his valiant performance in the latter rounds.
“As you know I have been waiting for this for a long time,” Olusegun said of his 119-110; 119-109; 120-109 victory.
“Gary Reid is a very, very tough opponent and I give him lots of respect. He has knocked out many, many men so I had to be careful. He caught me with some powerful punches so I had to be careful.
“I tried as much as possible to give it my best shot and try to stop him but he is very, very strong and he kept going and I’m glad eventually I won unanimously.
“Hopefully this will be the beginning of a good thing to come in my career. I want to box everyone in the British scene and even in the world and hopefully I will go ahead to win the world title.”
Reid drops to 13-17-1 (8) while Olusegun, 20-0 (10), said last week that he has Junior Witter, the WBC Champion, and Ricky Hatton in his sights.
Earlier in the evening, a resurgent Gary Woolcombe 23-1 (8) stopped Anthony Young, 4-3 (0), in the fourth round of six and in doing so laid the ghost of his sole career loss to rest.
Woolcombe’s 100% record had come to an abrupt halt at the hands of Andrew Facey in January and he was clearly a man on a mission last night.
“I knew I would come back,” an elated Woolcombe said post bout. “This is the start of big things.”
Frank Maloney, the 24 year olds promoter, was not surprised by the manner of Woolcombe’s victory.
“This just shows that Gary is not frightened to go back into the danger zone,” Maloney said. “We will just take another fight and then go for a title.”
Other Frank Maloney prospects were on the bill, with points victories for Nigerian Tony Salem and Commonwealth bantamweight champion Tshifhiwa Munyai of South Africa, respectively.
Munyai, fighting at featherweight instead of bantamweight, beat Rugby’s Harry Ramogoadi over eight rounds.
The towering South African landed some ferocious head and body shot combinations. He hurt Ramogoadi badly in the fourth and fifth rounds and his unrelenting pressure put Ramogoadi on the back foot throughout.
But Ramogoadi, who fought most recently as a light welterweight, rallied well in the latter stages of the fight. He caught Munyai with his own punches and comfortably managed to survive.
Munyai took the contest on points after eight rounds and improves to 14-0 (8) while Ramogoadi falls to 18-8-2 (4).
Munyai has now picked up his fourth victory in England. He is no stranger to these shores as he already holds stoppages against British bantamweight champion Martin Power (twice) and Lee Haskins.
Light heavyweight Tony Salem slickly outboxed durable journeyman Nick Okoth over four rounds. After a cagey opener, Salem settled down in the second round and scored a knockdown with a beautiful right hook.
Okoth bravely rose to his feet but he was completely outclassed by the impressive Salem in the next two rounds.
Salem won on points after four rounds and goes to 5-0 (2) while Okoth drops to 4-13-4 (1).
Salem has already mentioned that he would like to fight the winner of the upcoming British title clash between Tony Oakey and Brian Magee.
But realistically, he needs to fight over six and eight rounds before he steps up to a scheduled twelve round fight.
Unbeaten welterweight Scott Woolford maintained his perfect record with a narrow points win over Tyrone McInerny.
Woolford comfortable won the first three rounds and looked to have the fight wrapped up. But McInerny connected with a huge right hand that sent Woolford sprawling into the ropes. He was then sent to the ground but the referee did not score it as a knockdown.
Woolford literally hung on for the victory to improve his record to 4-0 (0) while McInerny goes to 2-1-2 (2).
Also on the bill, heavyweight John McDermott, 22-3 (15), prepared for his upcoming clash with Scott Gammer via a second round finisher over Luke Simpkin, 9-27-3 (7), light middle Sam Webb, 7-1 (3), made it three in a row with a four round points win over Ben Hudson, 7-33-1 (1), and lightweight Lee Cook improves to 9-0-1 (3) with a win over Rom Krauklis, 2-6 (1).
Press Release composed by Simon Jackson and Ben Lettman for www.frankmaloney.com