Hassan Mwakinyo has claimed that he has been offered a rematch with Liam Smith.
The 27-year-old was on the wrong end of a bizarre stoppage defeat against the Liverpudlian last weekend.
Mwakinyo faced his former sparring partner at the M&S Bank Arena on Merseyside, exclusively live on Sky Sports, in Smith’s first fight since inking a new promotional pact with Boxxer.
The Tanzanian, who is best known for his shock win over Sam Eggington in Birmingham four years ago, is a former IBO champion.
The ending to the fight was somewhat unsatisfactory, with the visitor slipping at the end of the third and it appeared that he injured his ankle, but he then continued fighting with a rally of hard shots.
During the fourth round, though, he was down twice. Mwakinyo went down of his own accord on both occasions – potentially because of the ankle injury – and the fight was waved off by referee Victor Loughlin after one minute and 46 seconds of the round.
The stoppage was protested by the Mwakinyo corner but he’s now 20-3 with 14 quick wins.
In the aftermath of the fight, Mwakinyo took to social media to reveal that Ben Shalom, the Boxxer CEO, has offered him the rematch against ‘Beefy’, who advanced to 32-3-1 (19 KOs) with the victory.
Mwakinyo’s social media post, translated into English, reads as follows:
“Due to the game yesterday and the referee’s actions being unfair to me, it has forced the promoter to give us a chance for a rematch with Liam January 23 23.”
Smith and the team were dismayed by the ending of the fight, with the former telling Sky Sports that he knew he Mwakinyo had it in him to quit if the going got tough.
He said:
“I don’t know what happened. I didn’t really do too much early on because Hassan was wild, I’m a bit gutted I never gave the fans a proper finish, but it’s out of my hands.
“He said he slipped, he just quit, it doesn’t take a genius to work that out.
“I said about the sparring story, I knew he had it in him.”
Nothing has yet been officially confirmed regarding the status of the rematch between the two who had shared plenty of rounds together prior to Saturday’s encounter on Merseyside, but Mwakinyo seems to think he’ll get another crack at the big time, whether he deserves it or not, at the beginning of next year.