Christian Hammer has defeated the former undefeated Brazilian Irineu Beato Costa Junior. After twelve lopsided rounds, the German-based Romanian won a unanimous decision. Two judges scored the fight 120-108, while one judge had the fight 120-107. ThaBoxingVoice.com also scored the fight 120-107.
Hammer started the fight conservatively. But with a strong and effective jab, he was easily winning the first half of the fight against Costa Jr., who was very inactive throughout the fight.
In the sixth round Hammer stepped up the pace. While Costa Jr. always stayed in his defensive shell, Hammer was able to stun him with some beautiful uppercuts.
As the fight went on, Hammer threw more and more punches, clearly looking for the knockout. But while his opponent was visibly tired and stunned several times, Hammer wasn’t able to really hurt his opponent. In the last round he managed to score a knockdown, but the knockdown was more a case of Costa Jr. being off balance than him being hurt.
This was Hammer’s tenth win in a row. The 27-year old fighter improved his record to 17 victories and three losses, with ten knockouts. For Costa Junior this was the first loss of his professional career. His record drops to 15-1, 13 KO’s.
In the co-main event we saw the return of Karo Murat, but not against the opponent he was originally scheduled to fight. Murat was supposed to fight Varol Vekiloglu. But Vekiloglu pulled out at the last minute, for unknown reasons, and 34-year old Leo Choula 9-6, 8 KO’s, who was scheduled to fight on the undercard, stepped in to replace Vekiloglu.
The fight was a complete mismatch. The last-minute replacement wasn’t able to bring Murat in any kind of trouble. Murat boxed very comfortably from the first round on, but looked in no hurry to take his opponent out. He obviously carried his opponent for several rounds.
After a few rounds of throwing jabs and an occasional uppercut, Murat decided that he had enough in the fourth round. Choula was already visibly tired at this point. With a few good uppercuts, Murat had Choula in trouble. With 90 seconds to go in the round, Murat landed a big left hook. Choula backed up and turned away, looking very dazed.
The referee decided to let the fight go on, but after Murat backed his opponent into the corner and landed a big right hook to the body, the referee waved the fight off. The fight was officially stopped after two minutes in the fourth round. With this victory, Murat improved his record to 26 wins with 16 KO’s, two losses and one draw.
On the undercard we saw another sad chapter in the career of Danny Williams. The 41-year old fighter, who was unstable from the first bell, was stopped in the second round by Adrian Granat 6-0, 5 KO’s). For the fighter who knocked out Mike Tyson 10 years ago, this was his 14th loss in his last 16 fights.
