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By: Peter Akinbo
The third African Knockout Championship held at the SOL Beach by Box Mall in Oniru, Lagos on Saturday delivered amazing performances with the main event of the night ending in just two minutes with the competition filled with knockouts.
The main event of the AKO 3 fight night between Josias ‘the K.O Wizard’ Musasa from DR Congo and Abdelghani Saber of Egypt ended in the first round as Musasa, living up to his alias, took less than two minutes to win the featherweight fight, beating Saber by technical knockout.
The Lagos crowd was visibly disappointed as Nigeria’s Segun Ogunnoiki suffered defeat to Congo’s Flex Munwe in their middleweight bout. Ogunnoiki was on the back foot in all three rounds against Munwe, who recorded a split decision victory.
The night started badly for Nigeria when Abdulbasit Bello suffered defeat in the first fight, losing against Uganda’s James Opio. The East African dominated the lightweight bout before securing a second round technical knockout win.
however, Dennis Johnson gave the home fans something to cheer about in the second fight of the night as the Nigerian did enough to record a split decision victory over Israel Mano of Burkina Faso in the light-heavyweight fight.
The night got better for Nigeria and cheers went louder for Jackiel ‘Smiling Assasin’ Anyana, who stunned Kenyan Benard Seret in the lightweight fight with a technical knockout win after a perfect head-kick in the first round.
The women’s bantamweight division fight between Precious Okoh of Nigeria and Togo’s Cythia Jibidar was stopped by the referee after the Togolese dominated the fight and scored a TKO win over Okoh.
The first of two Nigeria/Ivory Coast contests saw Nigeria’s Cornell Thompson delivering a wrestling master-class to secure a unanimous decision win over Francios Ahizi in the featherweight bout.
Ahizi’s defeat to Thompson was swiftly avenged by Xavier Adams, who knocked out Ugochukwu Melvin of Nigeria in the light-heavyweight contest in the second round.
The lightweight fight between Jibrin Baba of Nigeria and Jean Do Santos from Benin Republic ended in a split decision win for the visitor.
The African Knockout is the leading Mixed Martial Arts organisation in Africa, propelling the fast-growing sport on the continent, helping talents to achieve the goal of competing at the top level and following the steps of global stars, Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya.
The 2024 AKO season, featuring over 40 professional Mixed Martial Artists from over 15 African countries, continues in May with the African Knockout Championship 4.