Allotey Retains Wbo Title

By Raymond Ackumey

Ghana's Patrick Allotey on Saturday successfully defended his World Boxing Organization (WBO) Africa super welterweight title with a unanimous 12-round decision win over Ugandan Badru Lusambya at the Bukom Boxing Arena.

Allotey won on all three judges' score cards. It read 120-108, 120-109 and 120-109, all in favour of the Ghanaian.

Spurred on by an encouraging crowd that included ex-President John Dramani Mahama, former Youth and Sports Sports Minister, Nii Lante Vanderpuje, former Mayor of Accra Alfred Oko Vanderpuye and other high profile personalities, Allotey gave the fight his very best and was successful on the night.

Despite the warnings by the Ugandan to take the title home, many of the fans anticipated all Allotey dominance and a win via the short route but that was not to be.

Lusambya demonstrated he was no pushover as he stood toe-to-toe with the Ghanaian champions at certain stages of the fight.

But despite his resilience, Allotey controlled the fight from the initial stages with jabs and occasional overhead shots to head and body, obviously to test his durability.

The first four rounds had fans glued to their seats as the Ugandan jabbed effectively and returned the heavy body shots which he followed up with some decent hooks that occasionally forced the champion to back track.

Half way through the bout, Allotey grew stronger and sharper and penetrated the solid guard of his opponent.

When he did so, he troubled Lusambya greatly as his face begun to swell.

In the 8th round, a flurry of punches to the face and body of Lusambya had him wobble backwards but Allotey failed to follow up to finish the fight.

The foot works of the Ugandan was one of his biggest assets on the night as he combined well with some good left hooks and body shot to Allotey, drawing applause from the crowd.

The crowd craved for a knock down in the 10th round after a furious right hook from Allotey caught the challenger in the face, pushing him onto the ropes, however a tired looking Allotey could not finish him off at that point.

By the 12th round, Allotey had all but done enough to retain his belt and even for his challenger, he was gracious in defeat and quickly called for a rematch while acknowledging how credible the opponent from Chorkor, a suburb of Accra was.

The eventful night put together by Cabic Boxing Promotions also saw Richard Harrison Lartey winning the vacant interim WBO Africa heavyweight title following a second round stoppage of Burkina Faso's Boniface Kabore.

It was the biggest win for Lartey, coming in just the second round having anticipated an extremely tough bout following Kabore's experience with Ghanaian boxers.

The third WBO title was won by Emmanuel Martey who won the vacant WBO Africa super middleweight title via a technical decision win over Nigeria's Sunday Ajuwa.

The Ghanaian suffered an accidental head butt forcing the bout to come to an end in round six.

At the time of the stoppage, Martey was leading on all three judges' score cards (49-46, 49-46 and 49-46).

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