Fuzile likely to face new champion

Duncan Village boxing star Azinga Fuzile will challenge a new champion if his appeal to the IBF is successful.

This after IBF junior lightweight champion Tevin Farmer, who has been embroiled in verbal barbs with the local star, was dethroned by Joseph “Jojo” Diaz in the US on Thursday.

Fuzile is awaiting the outcome of his hearing, which will be announced on Thursday.

He is appealing his eight rounds stoppage loss to Russian Shavkat Rakhimov when they contested the right to challenge the IBF title in September 2019 in East London.

This after Rakhimov was caught on video being administered with what looked like smelling salts while resting in his corner in the seventh round.

After suffering Fuzile his first professional loss, Farmer immediately took to social media to slate Fuzile, saying he was not ready to compete against him at world-class level.

This heightened interest in the fight.

However, even if the hearing rules in favour of Fuzile, Farmer will not be his opponent after surrendering his crown to Diaz.

This when the American challenger battled through a nasty cut over his left eye to win in his third shot at a world title by scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113 to take Farmer’s 130-pound belt.

In the final fight of the evening, Demetrius Andrade retained his middleweight title with a ninth round TKO of heavy underdog Luke Keeler.

Andrade easily won the lacklustre fight, improving to 29-0. He has not lost since the 2008 Olympics.

In the same card, unbeaten Murodjon Akhmadaliev won his first title in just his eighth career fight with a split decision victory over Daniel Roman on Thursday, to capture Roman’s WBA and IBF junior featherweight belts.

Akhmadaliev won 115-113 on two scorecards, and Roman won 115-113 on the third in front of the crowd at the Meridian at Island Gardens facility in Miami.

Akhmadaliev, who won a bronze medal for Uzbekistan in the 2016 Olympics, improved to 8-0 with six knockouts.

He equalled former heavyweight Leon Spinks’ record of being a unified belt holder in just his eighth fight. He is also the first from his country to be a unified champ.

Roman dropped to 27-3-1 with 10 knockouts as the American was coming off the longest layoff of his pro career due to an injury.

Roman was making the fifth defence of his 122-pound title and fighting for the first time since beating TJ Doheny by majority decision to unify two titles.

In a novelty bout, social media influencer Jake Paul won his first “professional” fight with a first-round technical knockout of fellow YouTuber AnEsonGib.

AnEsonGib had trouble staying on his feet. When he wasn’t getting knocked down three times from soft punches, he was losing his balance and falling over because of an awkward crouching stance.