Repeat on Women’s Heavyweight bout
A new Women’s Champion was crowned last night at ABA Stadium, with Alrie Meleisea winning the New Zealand National (NZPBA Version) and UBF Asia Pacific Female Heavyweight Titles.
Alrie Meleisea took on Tongan Born Nailini Helu for the second time in their career, the first bout being on the Robert Berridge vs Adrian Taihia undercard in October. Meleisea took the bout in October on 48 hours notice and won the bout by split decision.
Alrie Meleisea vs Nailini Helu
Last night bout ended in a controversial split decision, with crowd in attendance reacting 50/50 to the decision. One of crowd in attendance live stream the fight on facebook, with members across social media delivering a similar reaction.
Before the fight was announced, the two supervisors of the bout took 5 minutes to go over the cards, making sure everything was 100% correct. After double checking the scores they deliver the results to referee Lance Revill, which Revill did not believe. Revill climbed through the ropes to look at the scorecards himself, which to his surprise, the Scorecards were added up correctly. Judge one scored the fight 59 – 58 to Meleisea, Judge two 55 – 59 Helu and Judge three 58 – 56 to Meleisea.
After the result, Helu’s camp announced that they will launch an appeal on the decision, however it is highly unlikely the decision will be change. With this decision an order could be made for a rematch to happen within the next 6 months.
Originally the winner of this bout was ordered to face Ange Davis in June, due to the result of the Helu vs Davis fight that happened in September last year which ended in a draw. Unfortunately Davis had fractured her ankle during training recently and will mostly be out of the ring for the rest of the year. Due to this, it will help Helu to potentially receive a rematch but we will have to see what happens over the next week.
The fight night started of with extreme amount of rain with the ABA stadium locker room flooded out, causing delays to open the show, however once it was all cleaned up and fixed the show went on.
On the undercard of the fight we saw female heavyweight Sarah Long defeat North Island Golden Gloves winner Geovana Peres. After this win, Long boxrec ranking jumped her up to 10th in the world and 2nd in New Zealand. From this win Long is now a potentially contender for the New Zealand title. The fight itself showed that Peres definitely knows how to punch, however she was doing the right thing at the wrong time. This being Long’s 4th professional boxing fight, her experience took over.
Kerry Davis debuted wear one of the best shorts ever seen, very shiny. Davis Debuted against Mubin Mohammed. Davis won every round in the fight, but it was a good test for him as he debuted against a very durable opponent.
The co-main event for the evening was a heavyweight bout for two pro debutants, Evander Tia vs Jordan Mororoa. Tia who is generally a cruiserweight, fought against a Kickboxer who was 10 kgs heavier. The fight itself was mostly uneventful till the last round, making it very hard time for the judges. In the end the fight ended in a majority decision win to Mororoa with the judges scorecards looking 40 – 39, 38 – 38, 39 – 38.
The main event of the night could be considered as fight of the year, however what happens next in Meleisea and Helu Career is currently unknown however the current question is Should there be a rematch?