By Nate Anderson: British and Commonwealth flyweight champion Chris Edwards (13-13-3, 4 KOs) easily defeated challenger Usman Ahmed (5-2-1) by a 12-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Fenton Manor Sports Complex, Stoke, Staffordshire, England. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 117-111 and 118-109. I had Edwards, 33, easily winning every round of the fight and couldn’t see Ahmed coming close to winning even one.
Edwards was penalized one point in the 8th when he was caught hitting on the break. Aside from that, Edwards was far too powerful and aggressive for the tall, slender 5’6” Ahmed.
Edwards dominated the 1st round, attacking Ahmed and hitting him with short hooks to the head and body. Ahmed tended to stay on the move much of the time, circling the ring and throwing wild shots. His aim wasn’t good nor was his power either.
Most of the time Ahmed threw arm punches, although on occasion he could load up with a couple of shots but his main focus seemed to be trying to land the weaker variety of punches. Ahmed spent much of the round retreating around ring trying to get away from Edwards.
It wasn’t very effective as Edwards was able to cut off the ring and continue to land his power shots almost as before. Edwards continued to fight well in the 2nd, hitting Ahmed with big left hooks, snapping Ahmed’s head back each time they would land.
Ahmed stood straight up most of the time so when he would get hit, his head would snap back violently quite often. Besides not keeping low, Ahmed didn’t keep his head tucked down and seemed to be fighting as if he were strolling around and not prepared to get hit.
The round was totally one-sided like the first with only one-way traffic coming from Edwards. In the 3rd round, Edwards dominated the first two minutes of the round landing big left hooks to the head. However, in the last minute of the round Ahmed landed some nice arm punches.
The shots no way compared to the big shots that Edwards had landed in the first two minutes of the round but it was at least a small start for Ahmed, who up until that point had been wildly missing with his few attempts to land a shot.
Edwards came back strong in the 4th round, trapping the rail thin Ahmed up against the ropes and battering him there with hard hooks. Edwards isn’t much of a puncher either, but his shots seemed to have a big effect on Ahmed because he was standing straight up most of the time and had a skinny neck and couldn’t control his head when he was hit hard. This was another round where Ahmed threw very punches back at Edwards.
In rounds five through seven, Edwards bullied Ahmed around the ring, roughing him up on the ropes and landing big shots. Ahmed looked tired and his weak punches were even weaker than before. Although he was still trying to fight back, Ahmed was taking a lot of punishment from Edwards and not answering back with much.
It might have been a good time for Ahmed’s corner to have stepped in and halted the fight at this stage of the bout because he was clearly outclassed by Edwards. In the 8th round, Edwards was docked a point early in the round for hitting on the break. It was another round in which Edwards dominated the tired and weak Ahmed.
In rounds nine through twelve, Edwards gave Ahmed a terrible beating, hitting him without stop on the ropes and not getting hit back all that much. The 9th and 10th rounds were especially bad, as Edwards was simply teeing off with huge shots that were catching Ahmed clean, and sometimes hurting him.
I give Ahmed a lot of credit for at least continuing to try and put up a fight, because with the kind of punishment that he took in these rounds, a lot of fighters would have quit or been knocked out. In the 12th, Ahmed briefly tried to go for the knockout at the start of the round.
However, he was too weak and exhausted to land more than a few shots before Edwards once again resumed his domination of Ahmed.