Sunny Edwards vs. Felix Pedro Alvarado Sanchez & Jack Bateson vs. Shabaz Masoud RBR.

Braithwaite 10-9 round 4, 40-36 overall. Essomba throwing slightly more but Braithwaite increasing his output in turn, nicking a close round for me. Better round than the others but still not that good.

 

Zelfa Barrett in the audience looking chipper, glad to see that worrying business with his leg hasn't materialised into something sinister.

 

Braithwaite 10-9 round 5, 50-45 overall. Finally the action picks up into what I expected which was a tactical and competitive fight. Braithwaite knows to throw multiple punches at a time to get the better of Essomba, having a lot of success downstairs in particular. Another round he nicked but Essomba had an argument for this one with his clean counters.

 

Essomba 10-9 round 6, 59-55 overall. Oh no another dire round now. Braithwaite doing very little for most of this round for some reason, Essomba still so hesitant though, only landing a few shots even with nothing coming back. Braithwaite comes on late with a lot of shots to almost take the round. Essomba is his own enemy here for sure.

 

Braithwaite 10-9 round 7, 69-64 overall. Essomba finally coming on but Braithwaite has his timing and is throwing clean counters in combination to head and body. This fight is as close to done for Essomba as it can be, he's not gotten going enough to win this.

 

Essomba 10-9 round 8, 78-74 overall. Braithwaite basically took this round off to allow Essomba to nick it with some infrequent combinations, even then it was still close enough. Ref pauses the round for some out of ring shenanigans, I wish I knew what happened because it was probably way more exciting than this fight.

 

Another timeout for some nonsense happening in the crowd, weird stuff.

 

The lights have been turned up as well.

 

Essomba 10-9 round 9, 87-84 overall.
Essomba starts encouragingly with some combos but fails to follow up on it much despite Braithwaite appearing a bit gassed now. Another pause for shenanigans, this one quite long. The announcer telling the crowd to watch the fight in the ring and not in the stands, I don't blame them for it whatsoever. Essomba far too tentative for his own good when he should be doing everything in his power to get back in this fight. Braithwaite got his energy back with the break but for some reason suddenly became very hesitant, allowing Essomba to take it with his few thrown punches.

 

Essomba 10-9 round 10, 96-94 overall.
Essomba starts well again, landing a good few punches but it seems to light a fire under Braithwaite who unleashes a salvo which tags Essomba plenty. Essomba then regains a semblance of control but Braithwaite doesn't back down, still not getting enough in return though. Essomba takes another round, he could feasibly earn himself a draw here still.

 

Essomba 10-9 round 11, 105-104 overall.
Braithwaite starts the round with some activity but Essomba is now finding him with more counters than before. Braithwaite is trying to stay in it but Essomba is definitely landing the cleaner work here. Another round in the bank for Essomba in the 12th makes this a draw for me which I couldn't have envisioned earlier.

 

Braithwaite is making a sure win fight becomes close

 

Braithwaite 10-9 round 12, 115-113 overall.
Braithwaite knows he has to secure a victory in this last round and comes out blasting. He's eating counters but still outlanding Essomba as a result of keeping up the pressure on him. His body attack has been money in this fight and he takes this last round from Essomba who let himself down big time.

 

SD here.
116-113 Essomba. Ridiculous card!
117-111 Braithwaite.
116-114 Braithwaite. Weird card.
Deserved Braithwaite win in a dreadful fight.

 

Olympic gold medallist Hebert Conceiçao here to liven things up hopefully, that left hook of his can do some damage as we all know.