Former unified light-welterweight world champion, Julius ‘Blue Machine’ Indongo lost to Tanzania’s Hassan Mwakinyo via a fourth-round technical knockout in the third edition of the ‘Rumble in Dar’ boxing tournament in Tanzania on Friday.
The two boxers met in the African Boxing Union Super Welterweight Title in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
In the match monitored by Nampa online, referee John Chagu stopped the fight in the fourth round as Mwakinyo piled on the pressure with the Namibian seemingly unable to defend himself from a barrage of shots from his opponent in the fourth round.
However, most of those shots seemed to be missing the target, hence Indongo seemed to be dismayed by the decision from the referee to stop the fight.
Indongo had started off well, throwing more punches than his opponent, but seemed to be unable to withstand Mwakinyo’s attack.
In the third round, Indongo was rocked by a powerful right.
Early in the fourth round, Mwakinyo caught Indongo with a powerful left-right combination which sent him staggering and he touched the canvas with his knee forcing the referee to give him an eight count.
That gave Mwakinyo the encouragement to attack Indongo, and he forced the Namibian boxer into a corner and unleashed several shots, leading to the stoppage of the fight by the referee.
Speaking to Nampa from Dar es Salaam, Indongo’s trainer and promoter Immanuel Moses said it was a fight “where promoters seem to influence judges or referees to play dirty”.
“If you look at the fight, no punch landed on Indongo, there was no knockdown in that corner, he never counted Indongo, he just waived the fight,” Moses said.
He added that when they checked the scorecard around the fourth round, Indongo was leading in all the judges’ cards in all the four rounds.
Moses also bemoaned the lack of sponsorship to host fights locally saying this exposes Namibian boxers to some dirty dealings in foreign countries as everything is done to benefit the home boxer.
“The promoter hosted two title fights and he had already lost one. So he had to make sure that by hook or crook he had to win the Indongo fight,” Moses charged.
Indongo who now has a record of 23 wins and four defeats, all of them via knockout, is expected back in Namibia on Saturday night.
Source: The Namibia Press Agency
