Juggernaut roles on! Vijender Singh remains undefeated, knocks out Francis Cheka

Indias Vijender Singh knocked out Francis Cheka in the third round to retainWBOAsia Pacific Super Middleweight titleNew Delhi Its 80 The Vijender Singh juggernautrolled on without a glitch as the Indian boxing star took lessthan 10 minutes to successfully defend his WBO AsiaPacificSuper Middleweight title with an emphatic Technical Knockoutwin over Tanzanias Francis Cheka here todayVijender landed the winning blow in the third round of what was to be a 10round contest to leave the former WorldChampion Cheka dazed and a packed Thyagraj Stadium deliriousI trained hard in Manchester for two months for this Ithank all my coaches for the effort they put in Cheka talkedso much but I believed in my punch power and I have done itVijender said after the boutCelebrities adorned the front rows surrounding the ring From fivetime world champion M C Mary Kom to Minister ofState for Home Affairs Kirren Rijiju to star wrestling duo ofSushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt it was a powerpacked frontrow to cheer for Vijender from ringsideHowever the man who stole the show among the frontrow occupiers turned out to be celebrity yoga guru Baba Ramdev Hewalked in with Sushil to a loud applause from the packedstadium and was instantly mobbed for selfies and handshakes bythe crowdWalking in to the now trademark tune of Singh is King Vijender had the crowd excited even before he entered thering When the bout finally kicked off Cheka seemed quickeroff the blocks even as Vijender played block and dodge However the Indian got into the groove soon enough and landed lusty uppercut to the body to rattle ChekaCheka seemed on the backfoot in the second round and was wary of having a go at the hardhitting Haryanalad who stuck to landing clean and straight blows Cheka was also undone by the reach advantage that Vijender enjoyedWhile Cheka struggled to keep his balance owing to his shorter reach Vijender put his long arms to good useEarlier the evening started with a 61kg contest between Rajesh Kumar and Ugandas Mubakaraka Sseguya In a rather slowfourround contest it was hard to pick between the two counterattacking boxers and it reflected in the judgesdecision who awarded the bout to the Indian in a splitdecision of 3937 3738 3937Next up was Deepak Tanwar 67kg against Indonesias Sutriyono Bara Boys The bout seemed grossly mismatched andDeepak looked way more than a handful for his rival Deepakundefeated in the circuit so far was hardly tested beforeforced an early end to the proceedingsIt took him one and half a round to pummel his rivalforcing the referee to stop the bout and award a TechnicalKnockout to Deepak who stretched his unbeaten streak to fourwith this winDharmendra Grewal 95kg six fights old in the circuit was up against Abasi Kyobe another Ugandan The crowd was upon its feet on every punch scored but that did little to hidethe sheer sluggishness of the bout It went the whole hog of four rounds though and Dharmendra was the judges unanimous choice for the winnerIn a lightweight faceoff between Kuldeep Dhanda and Indonesias Egy Rozten it was once again the crowd favouritewho emerged victorious the gulf in quality quite apparentThis was Kuldeeps third successive triumph in thecircuit keeping his unbeaten record intactThe last bout before the main event was between Pardeep Kharkera 67kg and Australian Scott Edward The sixrounderturned into a battle of attrition as both the boxers seemedexhausted by the second round itselfFighting with shell guards the two tumbled over twice in the course of the bout trying to dodge each other By thefifth round the Australian looked exceptionally exhausted andwas brought down twice by Pradeep The Australian had done just enough for the judges to rule unanimously in his favourHowever Edward did not seem happy after the victory and was seen having a verbal altercation with Pradeep at the endof the bout