By Eric Baldwin: Former WBO middleweight champion Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam (35-2, 21 KOs) absolutely crushed #1 WBA 160lb contender Alfonso Blanco (12-1, 5 KOs) in knocking out the 2008 Olympian in the 1st round with a single right hand last Saturday night at the Stade de l’Est in Saint-Denis, Reunion.
There wasn’t much to the fight other than the 32-year-old N’Dam coming out quickly, measuring Blanco and dropping him hard with a right hand to the head. Blanco went down face first on the canvas and was knocked out. The 30-year-old Blanco looked seriously hurt from the knockdown and he wasn’t able to get up for several moments. During that time, N’Dam celebrated his knockout win and was congratulated. The fight was stopped at 0:21 by referee Gustavo Padilla.
The victory for N’Dam removes Blanco from the running for a title shot against the winner of the March 18 fight between WBA ‘Super World’ middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and WBA World champ Daniel Jacobs. Blanco came into the N’Dam fight ranked #1 by the World Boxing Association at 160. The knockout loss now will result in Blanco being lowered in the WBA’s rankings. It’s likely going to take a while for Blanco to get back up in the rankings with the WBA if he ever does.
N’Dam came into the fight ranked #5 WBO, #6 WBA, and it will put him position for him to get a shot at the winner of the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight. N’Dam is a two-time Olympian, having competed in the 2004 and 2016 Olympics. The recent rules changes that allow for professional fighters to compete in the Olympics allowed the 32-year-old N’Dam to take part in the 2016 Olympics. Unfortunately for N’Dam, he was eliminated immediately in his first match in losing to Michel Borges of Brazil by a 3-0 score. The amateur game is a fast-pace one, and N’Dam did not do a good job of adjusting to the pace that was needed for him to be successful in that fight.
N’Dam previously held the WBO middleweight title from August 2012 to October 2012. N’Dam lost his WBO title to Peter Quillin in losing a 12 round unanimous decision. That was a strange fight where N’Dam was knocked down six times by Quillin. In between getting knocked down, N’Dam was out-working Quillin and looked like the better fighter.
The only problem N’Dam had was he couldn’t stay on his feet for long. That was same issue N’Dam had in his 12 round unanimous decision loss to David Lemieux in June 2015 in their fight for the vacant International Boxing Federation title. N’Dam was dropped four times by Lemieux in the fight. Despite getting knocked down four times, N’Dam outworked Lemieux in the other rounds and wound up losing by the scores 115-109, 115-109 and 114-110. It’s not normal to see scores so close when one fighter is knocked down four times in a fight. It just showed that N’Dam is a very good fighter when he’s able to stay on his feet.
With N’Dam’s chin problems, he’s not going to do well against the winner of the Golovkin vs. Jacobs fight.