Japanese southpaw Mizuki Hiruta retained her WBO super-flyweight title with a resounding victory over Mai Soliman.
Scores were 99-91, and 98-92 (twice).
Southpaw Hiruta was busier and sharper throughout and was urged by Manny Robles in her corner to keep moving to her right while looking for the straight left.
Soliman had some moments in the eighth, firing right hands down the barrel, but Hiruta held and moved and saw out the round.
Soliman couldn’t fathom the champion’s variety or volume and by the end her face had become lumpy and swollen and her left eye closed.
The impressive Hiruta improved to 11-0 (2 KOs) while Soliman, who was born in Cairo but fights out of Australia, drops to 10-2 (6 KOs).
While there is, for many, an air of predictability about the main event in Cairo between Oleksandr Usyk and Rico Verhoeven – in front of the Pyramids – there was a shock on the undercard.
Daniel Lapin, 13-1 (5 KOs), a Ukrainian southpaw and close friend of Usyk’s, lost for the first time as a pro when he was blitzed in four rounds by Benjamin Mendes Tani, 10-1 (3 KOs), who impressed with three-knockdowns along the way.
Mendes Tani broke through with heavy shots with both hands and caught Lapin, establishing his dominance early and having Lapin in trouble in the third.
Lapin looked out of sorts and struggled to keep the Frenchman off.
When Lapin did land, there was not enough on his shots to deter his opponent but when Mendes Tani – fighting outside of France for the first time – scored with his blows, Lapin was punched this way and that.
Tani was buzzing at the end of the third and seemed to hurt the Ukrainian to the body.
Lapin, his long, curly hair flapping in the Egyptian breeze, was dopped early in the fourth for the first time and the writing was on the wall.
He was down again some 30 seconds later, pushing himself up off his hands and knees to fight on but Tani did not let him off. Tani worked up and down and a straight right dropped Lapin for a third and final time.
It was a huge upset win for the Frenchman. Lapin had been ranked No. 4 by the WBA and five by the IBF and was in the top 15 in the WBO and WBC.
