Haskins Claims Interim IBF Bantamweight Belt

Lee Haskins announced his arrival on the world stage with an emphatic victory over the Japanese fighter, Ryosuke Iwasa, in Bristol last night.

Fighting for the interim IBF bantamweight title, Haskins stopped his opponent in the sixth round after catching him with a superb punch earlier in the round that the Japanese fighter never recovered from.

Cheered on by a partisan home crowd, Haskins started the better of the two fights with his unusual style troubling Iwasa. Haskins was connecting with quick shots and then withdrawing from range before Iwasa could reply.

A big shot had the Japanese fighter in trouble in round two but he recovered by boxing behind his jab and fending Haskins off. As Haskins continued to unleash quick combinations from unusual angles Iwasa started to come more into the fight in the fourth and fifth rounds, caching Haskins with some good shots and making it a closer fight.

But all that was too change in the sixth round when Haskins floored Iwasa with what the Bristol fighter was to later claim was the punch of his career, victory was in sight. Iwasa was on unsteady legs and when a few more shots saw him stumbling around the ring the referee, Phil Edwards, quite rightly, stepped in to prevent the Japanese fighter from being seriously hurt.

For Iwasa it was only the second defeat he?d suffered in a twenty-one fight career whilst Haskins moved his record to 32-3 with a win that opens up all sorts of doors.

As the holder of the interim IBF bantamweight title there could be a fight against the IBF champion Randy Caballero in the pipe-line although Haskins might be tempted to chase a fight against the current WBA bantamweight champion, Jamie McDonnell.