South Africa? s Vusi Malinga beat Michael Domingo of the Philippines on a 12 round majority points decision at the Mafikeng University Hall in Mafikeng on Saturday night, in an eliminator for the IBF bantamweight title. Judge Miroslav Brazio (Poland) and Jaap van Nieuwenhuizen (South Africa) scored it 117-111 and 115-113 for Malinga and judge Neville Hotz ((South Africa) was off the mark with a score of 114-114.
The southpaw Malinga (53.08kg) who is rated at number nine by the IBF made a slow start and gave away the first three rounds before picking up the pace in round four and went on to take rounds five and six and then punished Domingo (53.30kg) in the seventh and eighth rounds.
.Domingo who bled from a cut on the bridge of his nose changed tactics in round nine and began to box off the back foot to possibly win the round and also the tenth.
However, in rounds eleven and twelve he began to tire and received numerous warnings from referee Larry Doggett (USA), and was rather fortunate not to have a point deducted.
Malinga improves his record to 20-3-1; 12 and Domingo drops to 46-15-2; 18.
In a junior middleweight contest Phillip Ndou (69kg) fighting at his heaviest ever was rather sluggish before stopping comparative novice Bhekimpilo Mlilo (69.94kg) from Zimbabwe at one minute into the fourth round of a scheduled eight.
Ndou takes his record to 33-4; 32 and Mlilo?s reported record goes to 5,5.
Former IBO bantamweight champion Silence Mabuza (54.36kg) fighting at junior featherweight scored an easy third technical knockout over Lwazi Mzolisa (54.08kg) in a scheduled eight rounder. The fight was stopped at 2:57.
