Ekow Essuman claims the vacant English welterweight title in just his ninth fight
Unbeaten Essuman puts on a career-best performance
Ekow Essuman (9-0) defeated Andy Keates (13-8-2) to land the English welterweight crown in the headlining fight of the Scott Calow Promotions in association with JE Promotions event on October 20.
In what was the best display of his professional career to date, the Nottingham fighter was too destructive for the two-weight Midlands Area champion Keates, 27, who was getting his fourth crack at the English crown in a third different division.
The Botswana-born 29-year-old was fighting for his first professional title and pulled it out the bag, dropping his vaster experienced opponent twice in the fourth round and the referee Shaun Messer had no choice but to stop the fight once Essuman had produced another assault in the fifth.
Essuman’s trainer Barrington Brown was delighted with the performance and the win is now set to open doors for bigger domestic fights. The British welterweight title was contested on the same night between Londoners Gary Corcoran and Johnny Garton in what was a bloodied and brutal encounter culminating in an 11-round stoppage for Garton.
The stacked undercard of the co-promotion ‘Hometown Glory’ show was plenty of local talent with shutout wins for debutants, Luke Haigh from Worksop; Clifton’s Ryan Amos and Bulwell's Jordan Ringham, all triumphing on points over four rounds.
Bestwood’s Delmar Thomas, Essuman stablemate’s at DCT Academy, had a successful night in which he dropped Jake Pollard in the second, but couldn’t quite finish him off as he secured a 40-35 points win.
Bilborough’s Paul Thompson also won by the same margin as he beat the tricky Youssef Al Hamidi.
Newark’s Chad Sugden was a convincing winner over Latvian Jevgenijs Andrejevs over four (40-35).
Stapleford’s Nathan Kirk was pushed a little harder by Naheem Chaudhury but still won 40-37.