3 years ago
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Maiva Hamadouche came to brawl Friday nighttime astatine Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.
But truthful did Mikaela Mayer.
Mayer deviated from her tempered, tactical benignant and overpowered the assertive Hamadouche, claiming a 100-90, 99-91, 98-92 determination and unify the IBF and WBO inferior lightweight titles. The unification bout headlined Top Rank’s broadcast connected ESPN+, becoming the archetypal women’s rubric combat to header a institution paper since it renewed its parternship with the broadcasting juggernaut successful 2017.
The combat was person than the scorecards indicated. Mayer landed 239 punches compared to 233 for Hamadouche, who was the aboriginal aggressor. But Mayer fought occurrence with occurrence and seized power precocious aft fatiguing the French prima with a bevy of assemblage punches.
Top Rank president Bob Arum, who promotes Mayer, called the bout “one of the champion fights of the year, antheral oregon female.”
“(I showed) I could bang it retired connected the inside. That wasn’t truly the full crippled plan,” said Mayer, 31 of Woodland Hills, California. “The crippled program was to usage my jab, but successful the backmost of my head, I knew she was going to support it close, support maine connected the inside. Even though we trained for that, conscionable being capable to bash that for 10 consecutive rounds taught maine a lot.”
Mayer (16-0, 5 knockouts) decidedly deviated from her mean style. The 1 that helped her seizure the IBF crown past October with a unanimous determination implicit Ewa Brodnicka. She tends to enactment connected the outside, utilize her jab and usage her magnitude and tallness to prime isolated her opponents.
But Hamdouche (22-2, 18 KOs), the erstwhile WBO champion, wasn’t having that and opted to unit Mayer from the opening bell. Mayer met that aggression and endured an aboriginal tempest earlier uncovering her bushed with crisp assemblage punches. She landed 78 compared to 13 for the 32-year-old Hamadouche.
They took their toll aboriginal on, allowing Mayer to find openings up apical toward the extremity of the fight.
“I truly wanted to amusement everyone successful the part and the naysayers that I didn’t person the powerfulness and the grit to enactment successful determination for 10 rounds with Hamadouche that I americium the champion successful the division,” Mayer added. “I americium coming to beryllium undisputed, and I privation the large fights. I’m decidedly a threat.”
Contact newsman Sam Gordon astatine sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon connected Twitter.
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