PAULUS ‘The Rock’ Ambunda secured his world title shot after comprehensively beating Brazilian, William Prado during their WBO eliminator in Windhoek on Saturday.
Ambunda clinically dispatched off Prado on his way to a unanimous decision victory at a packed but bitterly cold Ramatex textile factory. The judges scored the bout 109-119, 108-120 in favour of the new WBO international bantamweight title holder. Ambunda is now the mandatory challenger for the full world title and will fight either WBO Asia Pacific bantamweight champion AJ ‘Bazooka’ Banal of the Philippines or battle Thailand’s Pungluang Sor Singyu for the belt relinquished by Mexico’s Jorge Arce.Banal and Singyu are set to square off on October 20. “He deserves it,” Ambunda’s promoter and trainer Nestor Tobias said after the fight. “He’s gonna get his date [with the champion] soon. You can see the hunger in this boy. He wants to be a world champion.”After that stunning performance, Ambunda is expected to move up from third to first position when the WBO announces it’s new rankings next month, said Tobias. On Saturday, the Namibian was irrepressible as he pummelled and bludgeoned his gutsy South American opponent. After a relatively good opening round, Prado found himself back-pedalling for the remainder of the fight. Ambunda landed big punches at will and in truth, should have floored his rival as early as the third round when he caught him with a firm right to the temple. However, he failed to follow up and Prado held on. The next four rounds saw Ambunda dominate Prado, who was oozing blood from his nose and mouth from repeated head blows. Sensing he had done enough for victory, Ambunda proceeded to toy and mock his opponent in the latter rounds instead of finishing him off. “Prado put up a great fight. He could have gone down but he kept fighting until the last round. This is typical a style of South American fighters. They don’t give up,”said Tobias. Former WBA lightweight world champion Paulus Moses won ‘the battle of the hitmen’ as he upstaged veteran Cassius Baloyi from South Africa to earn a points decision. Moses, who was by far the busier and more aggressive of the two during their ten-rounder, received a WBO International lightweight belt for his effort.It was a much-improved display from Moses in contrast to his tame outing when he lost out to WBO lightweight holder Ricky Burns in Glasgow in March. The third biggest attraction on Saturday’s card saw Bethuel ‘Tyson’ Uushona comfortably defeat Isaac Hlatshwayo to lift the WBO Africa welterweight title. Uushona controlled the fight from start to finish and was rarely troubled by the South African, who looked clumsy and clung to his rival throughout the fight. Flyweight Abmerk Shindjuu collected Namibia’s fourth title of the night as he bossed South Africa’s Khanyekude Mukhansi during their WBO Africa fight. While he appeared rusty after a long absence from the ring, Shindjuu had the beating of his opponent from start to finish. In other fights, Peter Malakia (NAM) beat Shepard Sauti (ZIM) on points; Samuel Kapapu (NAM) beat Richard Muriri (ZIM) on points; Abraham Ndaendapo (NAM) beat Matthew Chimbi (NAM) by round 1TKO; Niilo Frans (NAM) beat Manfred Haimbanga (NAM) on points.
