“That was bullshit,” said what I can only assume was a manager of Ghana born fighter Yakubu Amidu, who sat stoic in a chair being attended to after his draw with Juan Carlos Burgos. A man to the right of Amidu pointed to me, “He [motioning to me] had it 7-5 Amidu, and he is media. This is bullshit!” The Vince Vaughn promoted fighter Yakubu Amidu sat quietly responding in short modest answers with the demeanor of a man who appeared heart broken. For Amidu this is the second fight in a row he has a met a split decision and none have fared well for him as he is now 0-1-1 in his last two fights.
The humble Amidu sat quietly in a chair answering questions one at a time explaining as his trainer wearing a hat that read “wango”, looked heartbroken at the fact that his fighter did not receive the victory. “I took the fight on ten days’ notice,” Amidu said. “I feel I did enough to win, I landed the harder punches.”
The fans at home agreed too and so did the majority of twitter who hit up my account afterward explaining that they thought Amidu was the rightful winner. If only I could of heard Teddy Atlas’ thoughts on this as I could just imagine the rage he would get into with this verdict yet many ringside also saw the fight as a 6-6 draw. What made the fight hard to score was the activity vs. damage. Amidu clearly landed the harder punches from round three on up, but simply began an examination of how do you score fights as Burgos was winning the fight when it was contested in the middle and Amidu was winning when Burgos found himself trapped on the ropes. Yet Amidu explained that his game plan was not to put Burgos on the ropes he just answered with a simple shake of his head.
“It feels nice to have the fans support,” Amidu stated as he reflected on the fact that social media saw him as the winner and stated that he would be fine with a rematch or just another high level fight as it appeared disappointed had crept into his heart and he was not interested in things in terms of the future, but rather the here and now. “The ring was small, but I am a fighter, it makes no difference.” Amidu said as it appeared Burgos did not have the real estate to run around the ring that made him so effective in the Rocky Martinez fight.
Amidu who looked to derail Juan Carlos Burgos’ perception of potentially being the best fighter in the division not named Rocky Martinez, seemed to shock everyone, but a few trainers who when the final exchange occurred simply said “[Amidu] won, but there is no way that he is gonna get the call” as the fight concluded with a John Duddy esque exchange. The eleventh round also was thrown around as round of the year candidate as both Burgos and Amidu appeared to stun each other in this round yet it was the conclusion that confused the Sacramento crowd that was looking to see some form of winner in one way or another.
Tony “The Tiger” Lopez who was seated ringside spoke a day prior to the greatness of Sacramento as a fight town and the highly educated crowd resented the decision for neither fighter to win, but at the same time showed respect to each fighter as Juan Carlos Burgos who appeared the worse for wear spoke through a translator that he felt the increase in weight from his prior fights and wishes to move back down in weight as opposed to a rematch. Burgos also pointed to a bad training camp, one that some observers noticed a day prior when Burgos looked drained and tired at the weigh in. Burgos expressed, “Frustration in the decision and felt that when [Burgos] was landing his uppercut in the mid to late rounds he was winning the fight.”
It was one of those fights that deserve a re-match, but it will probably never occur, but one thing is for sure Yakubu Amidu is one of the most enjoyable fighters in the division to watch. On top of all of this, Amidu had been training for fighter who had never the style or stance of Burgos upon taking the fight. One thing is for sure though Amidu has an A-list backing in having Vince Vaughn helping push him to the forefront and should have Amidu fighting somewhat in the near future
