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Slovenia´s Ema Kozin was
pencilled in to defend her World
Boxing Federation (WBF) World
Middleweight title against South
African Mapule Ngubane on
Sunday, July 8, in Budapest,
Hungary. Instead she ended up
re-matching former IBF world
titlist Eva Bajic from Serbia.
Kozin had also been scheduled to
face Ngubane in March, but due
to visa problems she took on
Bajic instead, on short notice,
and retained the WBF world
championship by fifth round
stoppage. This time, the exact
same thing happened, no visa for
Ngubane and in stepped Bajic at
the last minute.
Since their first bout, Bajic
returned with a victory in
Hungary, but also lost decisions
to IBO world champion Mikaela
Lauren in Sweden and WIBA world
champion Layla McCarter in
Germany, solidifying the outcome
of the first Kozin vs. Bajic
fight as a very good performance
by the 19-year-old from
Ljubljana.
Despite being a mediocre 14-13
(9) going in, Bajic, who held
the IBF World Welterweight title
in 2013 and never lost it in the
ring, was certainly a worthy
late substitute, but it was more
or less expected that things
would turn out the same way as
in their original encounter.
However, Bajic appeared to be
determined to do better this
time, and gave Kozin a much
harder time. She fought well,
and even had her moments of
success, testing the champion
and making it a good fight.
Kozin was still the better of
the two, landing the cleaner
shots, but Bajic did herself
proud.
After ten rounds it was clear
that Kozin, who improved her
record to 14-0 (8), had retained
her title by a decent margin,
and judges Bulcsu Gabris and
Miklos Dory accurately scored it
97-93 and 97-94 in her favour.
Unfortunately judge Emeke Halas
must have been watching from the
bar, as she didn't give a single
round to Kozin and inexcusably
scored the fight 100-90 for
BAJIC, making it a totally
misleading, unjustifiable split
decision.
Promoter was Feja Box-Promotion.
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