The sheer physical force of Ann Sophie Mathis proved too much for Olivia Boudouma and netted the 34-year-old French star the vacant WBF women’s world welterweight championship on Thursday, June 23, in Pennes Mirabeau near Marseille.
Boudouma in the process not only suffered her first professional defeat when Belgian referee Jean Pierre Van Imschoot counted her out after 35 seconds of round five, but went straight to hospital with her jaw fractured in two places.
Despite the huge difference in punching power, Olivia was undaunted at the start and her neat boxing was impressive. But Mathis is tough and simply ignored her co-challengers punches, trying to chase Boudouma down. After giving away the third round, Ann Sophie finally connected and send the Swiss-based girl down in round four. Like a pitbull having smelled blood, Mathis then chased Boudouma early in the fifth and when floored again, with blood dripping from her mouth, it was clear Olivia was hurt and could not go on.
Mathis brought her outstanding record to 24-1 and the fact that this was her 21st KO win shows that she is probably one of the hardest punching female fighters, pound-for-pound, in the world.In the second main event, France’s # 1 lightheavyweight Nadjib Mohammedi won a lopsided 12-round decision (120:106, 119:108, 118:108) over George Tevdorashvili in a messy fight for the World Boxing Federation Intercontinental title. Both fighters are awkward to the core and referee Noel Monnet, who deducted the Georgian visitor two points for holding, did little to clean things up. However, Mohammedi, now 24-2 (12), will likely cause every lightheavy in the world problems, that’s how cute and hard to figure out he is. In his previous fight last December, he made WBO champion Nathan Cleverly look awful in losing closely on points – and did it on two days notice!
All in all, promoter Robert Safrani and his matchmaker Christel Aujoux put together an extremely enjoyable and highclass “WBF Boxing Night”.
