Raoui Defeats Tabbuso – Boxing

By Boxing News - 04/06/2009 - Comments

raouli32By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated female flyweight Nadia Raoui (10-0-1, 3 KOs) defeated Italian Maria Rosa Tabbuso (12-4-2, 3 KOs) by a unanimous decision on Saturday night on the undercard of the heavyweight match between Alexander Povetkin vs. Jason Estrada to capture the interim WIBA Women’s International Boxing Association flyweight title at the Burg-Waechter Castello, in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 100-90, 97-93 and 100-91.

Raoui, 23, one of the newest female boxing stars in Germany, used her all out punching style to dominate her opponent through 10 rounds on Saturday night. Raoui, whose fighting style is similar to WIBF/WBA female flyweight champion Susi Kentikian, used her swarming nonstop punching to batter Tabbuso from the first until the last round of the 10-round bout. However, Raoui’s aggressive punching had its drawbacks, as she took a number of big shots from Tabbuso during the bout and ended up with a badly swollen left eye and cheek.

Raoui started off well in the 1st round, rushing across the ring and immediately showering Tabbuso with punches with both hands. Raoui didn’t seem to care about defense as she threw a blizzard of shots with many of them missing or getting picked off on the gloves on Tabbuso. It didn’t matter, however, because of the sheer volume of shots that Raoui was throwing.

In the 2nd round, Raoui once again went right at Tabbuso from the start of the round, throwing big bombs and trying to take her out with every punch. During this time, Tabbuso landed a nice right hand that immediately caused Raoui’s left eye and cheek to start swelling up. It didn’t slow Raoui down whatsoever, though, because she was going full throttle with her offense and wasn’t letting up with her punches one bit.

In the 3rd and 4th rounds, Raoui attacked Tabbuso often with long sustained flurries, giving her Italian opponent little rest between her long salvos of big shots. Raoui seemed disinterested in throwing body punches during this time, focusing most of her attention on trying to land the head of Tabbuso.

This made Tabbuso’s job a little easier, because all she had to do was cover up her head and try to wait out Raoui’s long flurries. However, many of Raoui’s shots were leaking through Tabbuso’s defense and snapping her head around.

In the 6th round, Raoui landed a big left hook near the end of the round, hurting Tabbuso and sending her backwards towards the ropes. Her mouthpiece was knocked out from the force of the big shot. Seconds later, Raoui landed another big left hook that seemed to hurt Tabbuso further. However, luckily for her the round ended before Raoui could add to the damage.

In rounds seven through ten, Raoui landed often as she swarmed a tired and beaten Tabbuso, battering her with shots for the full two minutes of every round. Tabbuso now was only landing occasionally, spending the rest of the time trying to block the almost nonstop incoming fire.

Although Raoui doesn’t have the power of WIBF/WBA champion Kentikian, Raoui’s nonstop punching seems to make her just as dangerous for her opponents. The only imperfection on Raoui’s record, a 10-round draw against Eileen Olszewski in December 2008, arguably shouldn’t even be there, because Raoui dominated that fight the full 10 rounds and out landed Olszewski by a huge margin.