By Tim Royner: Former world title challenger Luke Campbell (19-2, 15 KOs) defeated #1 WBC Vyan Mendy (40-5-1, 19 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision in World Boxing Council lightweight title eliminator at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
The scores were 119-109, 118-111 and 116-112. This was by far the best undercard fight on the Anthony Joshua vs. Alexander Povetkin card.
Mendy, 34, had his moments in the earlier rounds, but once Campbell, 30, figured him out, he was able to box and move to pound out decision victory. the win for Campbell enables him to avenge his 12 round unanimous decision win from three years earlier in 2015 The win for Campbell makes him the mandatory challenger to WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia. Campbell could be tough fight for Garcia if he chooses to return to the ring to defend the WBC belt.
It was a good performance from Campbell, who showed a lot of improvement from his previous fight against Mendy. Campbell was still vulnerable to getting hit by left hooks from him.
In a disappointing performance, Lawrence Okolie 10-0, 7 KOs) stunk up the joint in defeating Matty Askin (23-4-1, 15 KOs) by an ugly 12 round unanimous decision win to win the British cruiserweight title. Okolie lost three points for fouling, and he was lucky to be disqualified for his frequent clinching during the fight.
Okolie would throw a shot and then immediately grab Askin with a clinch to keep him from throwing anything back at him. It worked well for Okolie to keep Askin from landing his shots, but it was ugly to watch and obviously illegal on his part, Okolie didn’t appear to have any confidence at all in his ability to defend against Askin in the way that a normal fighter would, so he chose to hold him frequently to keep him from throwing punches.
Heavyweight David Price (22-6, 18 KOs) gave it good try against Sergey Kuzmin (13-0, 19 KOs), but he ultimately was stopped at the end of four rounds from an arm injury. Price remarked after the fight that he had been fighting with a left biceps injury. The pain from the injury ultimately was too much for Price to continue fighting. Price fought well in the four rounds of the fight ad looked to be the better man. Price landed the better shots in the four rounds of action. Fatigue was setting in with Price at the time that he quit on his stool after round 4, but it’s debatable whether he would have been able to fight hard enough in remaining rounds to get the win.