Daniel Azeez vs. Joshua Buatsi & Adam Azim vs. Enock Poulsen - Round by Round.

I feel sorry for Azeez he was going to get screwed by the judges even without those bogus KD or at least one bogus KD. As I said, he fought at the wrong range and wasn't able to get off with his combinations and find his rhythm like he usually does which made things harder for himself. He should've got in close a lot more and unloaded with his combos and tried to drain Buatsi's gas tanks for the later rounds. His shots didn't look like they had much sting on them either.

Like I said, I feel he was in the ascendancy when the ref counted the slip as a KD and it demoralized him because he believed it would very likely cost him the fight in a close affair and there was no way back for him after the second KD which looked dubious too. But the judges were going to give it to Buatsi regardless. It was a winnable fight for him but a moment of bad luck and the deck being stacked against him ensured that he lost.

I'm glad Buatsi called out Yarde even though I don't think Yarde deserves a crack at the #1 challenger especially given it will ensure he gets another title shot. He's already had two undeserved ones and I'm sick of seeing him fighting zero threat tomato cans in between his world title fights. As Buatsi himself admitted, a shot at the winner of Beterbiev vs Bivol is unlikely at the moment as they might have a rematch so a fight against domestic rival Yarde while he's waiting for his shot is the next best option.


Yarde fought zero threat featherfisted binmen to secure his first title shot against Kovalev and then after losing to him he fought 4-48-3 Diego Jair Ramirez, 16-4 Dec Spelman, lost to 17-0 Lyndon Arthur, fought 23-5 Alex Theran, avenged his loss against a 19-0 Lyndon Arthur which is still to this day by far his best win even though Arthur is fringe world class at absolute best, then he fought 18-1 Stefani Koykov, lost to a 18-0 Beterbiev, bounced back against yet another tomato can the 22-8 Jorge Silva and next he's fighting the 32-3 Marko Nikolic. Don't be deceived by the records of all of those not named Arthur and Kovalev because they're all trash. Spelman is a decent domestic level fighter.

Beating Buatsi would be a step in the right direction to actually earn himself a world title shot but he's already had two and he wanted no part of Buatsi until he was ranked #1 and he knew a win over him would book him a guaranteed third title shot. Even if he beat Buatsi and got his third shot he would've received three title shots off the back of only fighting two credible opponents, neither of whom are or have proven they're above fringe world level yet.