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Frenchman Zakaria Attou
successfully completed his
transition from journeyman to
champion on Friday night (June
29) at the Salle Marcel Cerdan
in Paris-suburb Poissy, when he
clearly beat Belgian Champion
Kobe Vandekerkhove on points to
lift the vacant World Boxing
Federation International Super
Welterweight title.
Judges Jacky Vaillant, Jean
Pierre van Imschoot and Charles
Chenouf all scored the bout in
favor of Attou, 100-90, 99-91
and 98-92 respectively. The new
WBF Champion improved his
deceivingly modest record to
11-4-1 (4), while Vandekerkhove
fell to 21-14-3 (6).
The entire ten rounds followed
the same pattern, with
Vandekerkhove chasing Attou and
doing everything he could to
win, but the local man always
landed the better and harder
punches and imposed his physical
advantage. Being the bigger and
stronger boxer, Attou had little
problems stopping the Belgian in
his tracks, and the game effort
of Vandekerkhove was like
swimming in a river against the
flow.
There were no knockdowns in the
fight, and it was always a fair
and clean bout with little work
for referee Robert Verwijs. A
decent-sized crowd seemed to
enjoy the action, and promoter
Abdelilah Rahilou can be
satisfied with what was his
first promotion outside of
Morocco.
This was the seventh straight
victory for Zakaria Attou, and
winning the WBF International
title gets him closer to a
possible shot at newly-crowned
WBF World Super Welterweight
Champion, and fellow Frenchman,
Sebastien Madani. |
