By Eric Armit
IT might have flown slightly below the radar, however Sulaiman Segawa pulled off an enormous upset by scoring a unanimous determination win over Ruben Villa in Las Vegas final weekend. The Ugandan gained the battle of southpaws, utilizing his longer attain and excessive work fee.
He was feeding Villa proper jabs from the beginning, and Villa regarded sluggish as Segawa was getting his punches off first and placing collectively some sharp mixtures.
Villa was having no luck along with his pure counterpuncher fashion. He was typically on the entrance foot, being focused by counters from Segawa with little success.
Segawa was discovering gaps in Villa’s defence that ought to not have been there. Villa stepped up his personal work fee, however Segawa was extra correct, frequently discovering the goal with straight lefts.
On the events after they stood and traded punches, Segawa was throwing extra and touchdown extra. Villa had a superb fourth, touchdown some crisp uppercuts and twice rocking Segawa with rights.
Villa outscored Segawa within the sixth, however that didn’t preface any change within the battle’s circulation. Segawa once more put in a better degree of labor within the seventh and surprisingly outboxed the extra skilful Villa, who was not firing along with his regular accuracy.
Segawa was working time beyond regulation along with his proper jab and utilizing his power to push Villa away when Villa received inside. Villa had heavy bruising round his left eye.
Villa rocked Segawa with a proper hook within the eighth, however Segawa then landed two laborious lefts just for Villa to drive house a collection of physique pictures that had Segawa backing off.
Segawa took the ninth as Villa was simply not throwing sufficient punches and Segawa closed the spherical scoring with a collection of punches.
Segawa used his jab to boss the primary half of the tenth, and Villa attacked laborious within the second half, nevertheless it was Segawa’s spherical and Segawa’s battle.
The scores got here in at 98-92, 97-93 and 96-94 for Segawa, who gained the WBC Silver title. Villa was No 1 with the WBC, so this was an enormous win for Segawa and a giant blow for Villa.
Segawa had misplaced broadly towards unbeaten Argentinian Mirco Cuello over eight rounds in March, so he regarded like a reasonably secure opponent for Villa. Nevertheless, Villa by no means actually got here to phrases with Segawa’s excessive work fee and had an evening he would need to overlook. It’s Villa’s second profession stumble after his 2020 loss to Emanuel Navarrete (beneath).
