ADAM AZIM chalked up the most significant win of his career in style as he dropped and stopped former world champion Sergey Lipinets inside nine rounds.
But it was not all plain sailing for the Assassin, who was deducted two points by Steve Gray for low blows as a number of hard body shots strayed too low for the referee’s liking.
However the infringements did little to slow Azim, who turned in a mature performance to keep his more experienced opponent at bay before gradually turning up the heat and securing the stoppage after 33 seconds of the ninth.
He had made a reasonably low-key start, probing with the jab and only occasionally choosing to land with anything more dangerous. Lipinets seemed incapable of closing the distance with Azim systematically pumping out his jab in singles and doubles.
A right uppercut seemed to momentarily stiffen the legs of the Kazakh in the third but it was the left hook that made a huge breakthrough in the third round. Lipinets was on the attack and pursuing Azim onto the ropes but the Slough man, on the retreat, landed a beautiful left hook which dropped the visitor heavily.
In the fourth round, after an Azim body landed very low, Gray deducted the first point from Azim and gave Lipinets time to recover. Then, when another one sunk in low during the fifth, Gray again momentarily paused the fight but decided against taking away a second point.
The sixth round was turning into target practice for Azim, whose output was low but much of what he threw was landing. The right uppercut, in particular, seemed to be hurting Lipinets.
There were boos in the seventh when another body shot appeared to land low with Lipinets this time taking a knee. Azim was deducted a second point for the infringement but was still well ahead on the cards given his dominance.
And he really started to turn the screw in the eighth round, landing with a barely believable series of hard right uppercuts which Lipinets was totally unable to avoid. His face was a bloody mess by the end of the round and Shane McGuigan shouted ‘don’t be brave’ towards his opposite number as he climbed into the ring.
Azim was straight back onto the attack in the ninth, with yet more right uppercuts, and Gray decided to jump in and end the punishment as soon as Lipinets’ legs dipped again. Azim becomes only the second man, after Jaron Ennis at welterweight, to stop the Kazakh ‘Samurai’.
The 22-year-old former European champion is now 13-0 with 10 KOs and picked up the IBO super-lightweight title as a result of this victory.
