By Eric Armit
IT might have flown just below the radar, however Sulaiman Segawa pulled off an enormous upset by scoring a unanimous resolution win over Ruben Villa in Las Vegas final weekend. The Ugandan received the battle of southpaws, utilizing his longer attain and excessive work fee.
He was feeding Villa proper jabs from the beginning, and Villa appeared sluggish as Segawa was getting his punches off first and placing collectively some sharp combos.
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 an excellent 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 move. Segawa once more put in the next stage of labor within the seventh and surprisingly outboxed the extra skilful Villa, who was not firing along with his regular accuracy.
Segawa was working extra time along with his proper jab and utilizing his energy to push Villa away when Villa bought inside. Villa had heavy bruising round his left eye.
Villa rocked Segawa with a proper hook within the eighth, however Segawa then landed two onerous lefts just for Villa to drive residence a sequence 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 sequence of punches.
Segawa used his jab to boss the primary half of the tenth, and Villa attacked onerous 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 received the WBC Silver title. Villa was No 1 with the WBC, so this was an enormous win for Segawa and an enormous blow for Villa.
Segawa had misplaced extensively in opposition to unbeaten Argentinian Mirco Cuello over eight rounds in March, so he appeared like a reasonably secure opponent for Villa. Nonetheless, Villa by no means actually got here to phrases with Segawa’s excessive work fee and had an evening he would need to neglect. It’s Villa’s second profession stumble after his 2020 loss to Emanuel Navarrete (beneath).
