American heavyweight prospect Da’Mazion “Mazi” Vanhounter knocked out former Miami Hurricanes basketball player Raphael Akpejiori in the first round of their fight on the Ryan Garcia vs Conor Benn undercard tonight.
Vanhouter, 21, improved to 13-0 (10 KO) with the win, which was a little more eventful than a KO-1 might lead you to expect.
Akpejiori (19-4, 18 KO) was knocked down and was getting tagged consistently with power shots, but after the knockdown, we did see Vanhouter suffer at least a minor
arm injury, when Akpejiori had Vanhouter’s left arm locked up in a way that could have, at worst, separated a shoulder.
After an injury check, Vanhouter continued and got right to raining down more power shots, dropping and stopping the ex-Hurricane at 1:58 of Round 1.
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The win is a nice bit of attention for the young prospect on a big show, but Akpejiori’s win-loss record needs to be taken with a grain or 200 of salt. He’s got no real quality wins, and had been stopped early by both Arslanbek Makhmudov and Stephan Shaw prior to this fight.
There is definitely potential in Vanhouter, but the young man remains a work in progress, and this win can only tell us so much.
What did you think of the win? Will you have Vanhouter on your heavyweight radar from here?
