By Scott Gilfoid: In a shocking upset, little known 23-year-old Tanzanian Hassan Mwakinyo (12-2, 8 KOs) destroyed Sam Eggington (23-5, 15 KOs) in a 2nd round knockout on Saturday night in a scheduled 10 round fight on the undercard of Amir Khan vs. Samuel Vargas on Sky Sports and DAZN at the Arena Birmingham in Birmingham, England.
Mwakinyo hurt the 24-year-old Eggington in round two, and then flurried on him with nonstop punches to the head until the referee Kevin Parker was forced to step in and stop the contest. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:02 of round two.
Mwakinyo was brought in as a replacement opponent on a couple of weeks’ notice or the 5’11” Eggington to fight. This was supposed to have an easy fight for Eggington, but he was hurt at the end of the 1st round and he never really recovered from the shot. Mwakinyo continued to tee off on the defenseless Eggington in the 2nd round. He was hitting Eggington at will with punches, and he wasn’t even trying to block the shots. Eggington was just taking the punches with his chin and he looked like he was hoping Mwakinyo would get tired from hitting him. That didn’t turn out to be the case unfortunately.
If promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing needs an opponent for Kell Brook, then Mwakinyo would be a good option if he can’t make the Amir Khan vs. Brook fight for December.
For Eggington, it might be time for him to consider retiring from boxing. He took a lot of punishment tonight against a fighter that he should have been able to beat with ease. Last year, Eggington was beaten by a mediocre fighter in Mohamd Mimoune by a 1 round split decision. That should have been a winnable fight for Eggington if he had a shred of talent, but unfortunately he was beaten up by the French fighter in losing a 12 round decision in a failed attempt to capture the EBU welterweight title.
Eggington looked like a decent fighter two years ago in beating Frankie Gavin, Paulie Malignaggi and Ceferino Rodriguez. But since those three wins, Eggington has looked awful in losing to Mimoune and then getting beaten tonight. I don’t know what Hearn can do with Eggington. If he keeps him with his Matchroom stable, it’s hard to know in what capacity he can use him. Eggington needs to be able to beat guys like Mwakinyo for him to be useful.
If Hearn isn’t going to dump Eggington, then he needs to setup a rematch with Mwakinyo if possible. This is the type of fight that Eggington can’t walk away from. If Hearn can schedule a rematch betwwen the two, then maybe Eggington can avenge his loss if he retools his game and works on his head movement.