SHEFFIELD, England – Rising heavyweight prospect Leo Atang made light work of Fouad Shaili at Sheffield’s Utilita Arena.
The mismatch ended with Atang dispatching of the 40-year-old Shaili at 2:30 of the opener.
France’s Shaili looked petrified of the hard-hitting Atang from the start, twitching whenever Atang threatened to let his hands go. Shaili kept his hands high in an attempt to protect himself whenever Atang did let those hands go, but had little success. The fleshy Frenchman was nothing but a punchbag to the 19-year-old Atang and he dealt with him accordingly.
Atang smashed Shaili from pillar to post, with Shaili desperately trying to cover up. The punches were coming from all angles and the Frenchman could do nothing about it. Following a string of hard, unanswered punches late into the opener, the referee Keiran McCann had no choice but to call a halt to the contest.
Strangely, Shaili was disgusted with the decision, shrugging off McCann and parading around the ring with his hands in the air.
Shaili, now 5-5-2 (3 KOs), then dropped to the floor and proceeded to do push ups to demonstrate he could have continued. McCann’s decision, however, was the correct one.
“They’re doing that to try and look better,” Atang, now 7-0 (6 KOs), said of his foe post-fight. “If it was up to me I’d flatten them properly. When you’re not punching back, what do you expect?”
The promoter of the event, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, had no sympathy for Shaili and praised the young Atang’s development.
“I wish they’d let him finish him properly. That’s a durable opponent, he would have gotten flattened,” said Hearn. “This is an electric talent and a guy who is destroying guys like that … I’m as confident as ever that this guy is a future world champion.”
