Ermal Hadribeaj Hands Bakary Samake First Defeat in Oberhausen Upset

Ermal Hadribeaj walked into Germany as the older, less hyped fighter and left with arguably the biggest win of his career.

The unbeaten Albanian-American outboxed and outworked previously undefeated French prospect Bakary Samake over 12 rounds in Oberhausen, taking a unanimous decision in the night’s WBC super welterweight eliminator. Considering the noise around Samake beforehand, it definitely felt like a bit of a statement.

Main Event

Ermal Hadribeaj improved to 23-0-1 with a unanimous decision victory over Bakary Samake, who slipped to 19-1-0 after suffering the first defeat of his career.

The scores came in at 115-113 twice and 116-112 in favour of Hadribeaj after 12 rounds of hard work and constant pressure.

Samake had talked confidently throughout fight week and there were moments where his speed and sharper shots showed up, but Hadribeaj never really let him settle. The southpaw kept dragging the fight into uncomfortable territory and seemed to nick enough rounds with activity and persistence.

By the later rounds, Samake looked like a fighter realising things weren’t going according to plan. No collapse, no domination, just a younger unbeaten contender getting dragged into a rough fight and coming off second best.

For Hadribeaj, this was huge.

Co-Main / Key Fights

Badien Hasso barely needed any time at all to claim the vacant WBC International Light Heavyweight title, flattening Victor Vicente Correa Ramos in the opening round.

The official time of the knockout came right at 3:00 of round one, moving Hasso to 23-0-0 while handing Correa Ramos his first defeat at 11-1-0. Brutal and sudden. No surprise people were talking about that one afterwards.

Mourad Aliev handled business over eight rounds against Raphael Akpejiori to win a unanimous decision and capture the WBC International Silver Heavyweight title.

The scorecards read 78-73, 78-72 and 78-71 for Aliev, who improved to 15-1-0. Both heavyweights were deducted a point in round eight for excessive holding after things got messy late on.

Other Title Fights

Luis Vela stayed unbeaten and moved to 7-0-0 after comfortably outpointing Oussama Kebdani over eight rounds to claim the WBC International Super Lightweight title.

The judges scored it 80-71 twice and 79-72, with Kebdani dropped in the seventh round before losing a wide unanimous decision.

Muhamet Qamili improved to 18-1-1 with an eight-round unanimous decision over Alessangel Mayora for the WBC International Silver Super Featherweight title.

Qamili took the fight on scores of 79-73, 80-72 and 78-74, controlling things well enough throughout to hand Mayora his second professional defeat.

Non-Title Undercard

The remaining undercard bouts involving Ahmed Krnjic vs Bojan Cestic, Konstantinos Plateias vs Yonny Molina, Sarhad Nouzad vs Robin Zamora and Luka Pratljacic were listed on the event card, though official results were not available at the time of writing.

Closing

Most of the attention heading into the night was on Samake and where he might go next. Instead, it was Hadribeaj leaving Germany with the momentum and probably a few people finally taking notice of him.

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