Emmanuel Tagoe pulled off a sterling performance in his last fight on the Asamoah Gyan fight promotions with a partisan crowd at the Bukom Boxing Arena on Saturday night.
Tagoe 30, (29-1, 14KOs) came into the ring riding in a palanquin with a very old traditional song amidst traditional dance and antiques. The Ghanaian delivered his finest display of boxing against Vyacheslav Gusev winning on the judges cards unanimously with 120-107, 118-109 and 119-108 by Roger Barnor, Patrick Mkonduwa and Clifford Nkonsinathi Mbelu respectively.
In a very spirited fashion both boxers gave a good account of themselves in the first two rounds with Tagoe slightly edging Gusev. Tagoe took charge of round 3 dominating with jabs and a combination of body shots on Gusev.
In the fourth round, body shot and a hard hitting left hook to the head of Gusev sent him to the canvas. The highly partisan crowd which was loud, rumbustious and sporadic from the beginning kept the cheers as Tagoe led with jabs and a flurry of punches. Another body left jab Tagoe created offensive opening for him to stop Gusev but could not maintain the momentum.
It was clear at this point that Tagoe was leading on the cards of the judges.
Momentarily what looked easy and a walkover changed as Gusev came in strong in the round seven with a big overhead hook followed with bone crashing body shot on Tagoe. It was a big round for Gusev but Tagoe survived it.
Tagoe, very noted for his theatrical antiques took charge again, delivered big rounds in 8, 9 and 10 landing more jabs and body shots amidst claps and cheers from the crowd. Gusev aggression was nonexistent at this point and totally at the receiving end.
Gusev in the last 2 rounds restored the aggression but without effective punches but Tagoe will always move out of danger with quick jabs to destabilise the steady aggression from Gusev.
The bell went off and the referee at the center ring Ignatius Missailidis stopped the fight for the entire caboodle.
“Lomachenko, I’m coming for you, I’m ready to take the WBO Lightweight title from you and set a unification with Richard Commey and beat him as well” Tagoe asserts after he was strapped with the WBO Global and the IBF international lightweight titles.
On the night, Sheriff Seidu secured a (55-59, 55-59,57-60) unanimous win against Moses Dodzi in a featherweight contest, Former member of the Black bombers, Musa Rahman defeated his counterpart Isaac Tetteh in a Super welterweight contest over six rounds.
In the Super Middleweight contest, Prince Okoe Nartey proved too powerful for his opponent Kofi Johnson.
Mubarak Abubakar defeated Boateng Agyemang whiles Ezekiel Annan and Sherrif Mohammed was a split draw.
Mawuli Folivi succumbed to the might of Idris Amadu. In the International catch weight contest, Ghana’s Bastie Samir, the Bukom Banku silencer KOed his Beninois
counterpart Raoul Lokossou via a round 2 TKO to finally crowned the second Asamoah Gyan Fight Night 2.