Aaron Robinson controversially loses in Birmingham

Aaron Robinson’s dreams of global superstardom were spectacularly derailed in Birmgham on Sunday night as local man Simon ‘Mr KO’ Akufo ripped the WKA European title from him with a controversial unanimious decision victory.

The Birmingham man had Robinson down in the 6th round, but in many peoples opinion’s this was the only round he won in the whole of the 10 round fight.

Aaron started the fight very confident, using slick boxing movement to counter anything a fired up Akufo had to throw at him.  I shop lead leg roundhouse appeared to momentarily drop Akufo in the first round, but no damaged seemed to be caused and no count was given.

The pattern was the same in the second round with Robinson causing Akufo all sorts of problems with his long, sharp jab that continually frustrated the Birmingham boxer throughout the fight.  On the inside Aaron was moving his opponent very well and landing some rib-bending body shots.

Akufo showed more in the third round, holding ring centre but it was Robinson landing the more eye-catching shots.

Robinson survived a nightmare sixth round in which he took a solid left hand to the chin which sent him crashing to the canvass for an 8 count.  This left him on wobbly legs for the remainder of the session.  He had to run for much of the round as Akufo stalked him and repeatedly landed power shots to head and body, one of which – a right near the ear – very nearly sent Robinson tumbling again.

Before the seventh round Aaron was given clear instructions by cornermen Shawn Burton and Adam Butler not to get involved like he did in the previous round and to get back to using his jab that was working so well in the first half of the fight.  Aaron followed these instructions down to the word and took the seventh round before having a massive eighth round where it looked like a stoppage was on the cards.

The final 2 rounds where exactly the same as the others, very close and competitive but with most people thinking the Lincoln man had done enough to take the title home.

After 10 very hard-fought, competitive rounds both fighters waited patiently in the centre of the ring awaiting the decision.

The were confident that they would have the WKA European Welterweight title hanging up at their gym until the heard the score cards read out:- 96-98, 92-98, 96-97 and the winner by unanimous decision Simon Akufo.

The Lincoln KBA fans couldn’t believe what they had heard they believed Aaron had done more than enough to take the title, but that’s the nature of the sport and a problem when going to somebody else’s backyard to fight.

Please note this is not an attack on Simon who is a true world class fighter and will make a great champion, but the gym have to defend their man and make it aware that we are not happy with the decision, particularly the criminal 92-98 scorecard.

Finally, congratulations to Simon and commiserations to Aaron who looked great in the ring and like Shawn Burton in Argentina, a completely different fight from previous fights – full credit must go to Adam Butler here who has changed the styles of the clubs fighters massively.