Anthony Joshua vs. Carlos Takam – Results

By Boxing News - 10/28/2017 - Comments

Image: Anthony Joshua vs. Carlos Takam - Results

By Jeff Aranow: Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs) retained his IBF/WBA heavyweight titles with a premature 10th round stoppage over his replacement opponent #3 IBF Carlos Takam (35-4-1, 27 KOs) on Saturday night on Sky Box Office PPV and Showtime Boxing from the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:34 of round 10.

(Photo credit Esther Lin/SHOWTIME)

The boxing fans at ringside booed the stoppage of the fight, as they felt that Joshua should have been allowed to try and finish Takam, who was still on his feet at the time the fight was halted.

Joshua hurt the 36-year-old Takam with a right uppercut in round 10. Joshua then unloaded with some solid shots that caused the referee to step in early to stop the contest. Takam didn’t look that badly hurt, but referee Phil Edwards halted it anyway out of a precaution. Takam was cut over both eyes, but he was still fighting bravely.

Fighting in front of a large crowd of 80,000 boxing fans in Cardiff, Wales, Joshua suffered a broken nose in round 2 from a head-butt with Takam.

In round 7, Takam was cut over his left eye from a right hand from Joshua. With both eyes cut, Takam fought bravely and didn’t show signs of slowing down.

Takam fought well in the 8th and 9th rounds, landing some big shots to the head of Joshua. Takam constantly came forward, looking to land, but he wasn’t able to catch Joshua with enough punches to cause him any worry. In both of those rounds, Joshua focused on his boxing by jabbing Takam and landing a lot of single right hands to the head.

In the 10th round, Joshua connected with a big right uppercut to the head of Takam. It didn’t look like the punch hurt Takam badly, but the follow up barrage from Joshua definitely did have the Cameroon heavyweight hurt. At that point, British referee Phil Edwards stepped in and stopped the fight with Takam still on his feet and not looking nearly bad hurt enough to have the fight stopped. Edwards has been involved in a number of fights in the past where he stopped the contests prematurely, so it wasn’t surprising that he stopped tonight’s fight a tad early. Takam appeared to be on his way to losing the fight anyway. Even if the referee had let the fight continue, Takam wasn’t going to win. He probably would have been knocked out in the 10th with the way Joshua was punching.

Joshua landed a nice right hand in round 4 that opened up a cut over Takam’s right eye. In the same round, Joshua came on to knock Takam down with a peach of a left hook to the head. Takam got back to his feet and continued to fight hard.

After the fight, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn said that he wants to match him against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber’ Wilder in the UK so that he can win his WBC title. Hearn didn’t make any mention of Wilder needing to fight No.3 WBC Dillian Whyte, who he promotes. It’s unclear whether Hearn will try and force the Wilder vs. Whyte fight like he’d been talking about wanting to do.

With the way that Whyte fought tonight in putting in a poor performance in his 12 round unanimous decision win over Robert Helenius in the co-feature bout on the card, it’s possible that Hearn no has any interest in making the Wilder-Whyte fight. Whyte really stunk out the joint with his boring 12 round decision win over the 6’6” Helenius.

After the fight, Joshua seemed to be less than excited when talking about a potential fight with Deontay Wilder. Joshua spoke about having different mandatory defenses that he needs to take care of, and he said it was up to his boxing fans in deciding who he’ll face next.