Ness outpoints Mthembu in bloody title fight
SA welterweight champion Shaun Ness was made to work hard for his unanimous decision win over Ayanda Mthembu to retain his title in a bloody slugfest at Emperors Palace on Sunday, July 24.
The tournament, dubbed ‘Prospects at the Palace III’ was presented by Golden Gloves in conjunction with Emperors Palace and SuperSport.
Both pugilists gave onlookers a fight to remember for a long time to come as they both refused to lose before the fight went the distance.
Judge Wally Snowball scored the fight 117-113 and judges Joe Chaane and Simon Mokadi scored it 115-114 and 117-111 respectively, all in favour of the champion.
Either fighter could have won the fight at different stages of the bout.
Mthembu made a flying start and surprised the champion with an effective combination of blows. The challenger maintained the pressure for the next three rounds with Ness having a slow start.
The champion then began to pick up the pace and his measured, accurate, more educated and devastating punches that left Mthembu’s face a bleeding wreck were a pleasure to watch.
Ness continued as the aggressor with rounds six to eight being his best. He had Mthembu under the cosh in the sixth but the challenger was saved by the round interval bell.
Mthembu enjoyed another good start in the eighth but his tired punches did minimal damage to Ness. The champion assumed the ascendency midway through the round with hard and damaging blows.
He had Mthembu in trouble against the ropes and referee Thabo Spampool could’ve decided to stop the fight and spare Mthembu from being further pummelled but the hard challenger refused to back down and survived another onslaught.
Mthembu drew inspiration from his stamina’s reserve tank and still had enough to give the champion a scare in rounds 10 and 11. Undoubtedly the aggressor in this late period, Mthembu had the tired champion in big trouble in round 11 with a series of unanswered strikes and it was again the bell which came to the champion’s rescue this time.
The champion improved his record to 10-1-2; 5 while Mthembu dropped to 5-4-1; 4.
In the afternoon’s penultimate bout, Dee-Jay Kriel survived a couple of knockdowns before coming back to earn a TKO win in the seventh in an equally contested eight-round catchweight battle with Nyelisani Thagambega.
Elsewhere, Thulani Mbenge maintained his perfect record as he gave Zenzile Mtanze a boxing lesson in their welterweight clash scheduled six rounds.
Mbenge easily won via TKO in the first to improve his record to 7-0-0. Watch this space.
Other results:
John Bopape W TKO 1 Andile Mabilisa – junior middleweight
Ephraim Chauke draw 6 Morabedi Khotle – junior featherweight
Chaz Wasserman draw 4 Fiston Kabamba – light heavyweight
Lucky Mongebane W KO 1 Caiphus Thomas – junior lightweight – @SabeloBoksburg
