Lee McAllister defeats Sam Amaoko to retain Commonwealth lightweight title

In a largely dull and tedious affair, Lee McAllister failed to impress in a decision victory over Ghanaian challenger Sam Amaoko (6-0 on boxrec, presented as 24-1 on Sky Sports).

For the first six rounds, McAllister largely dominated a very tentative Amaoko who, billed by Sky as a warrior of sorts likely to try and war, threw very few, if any, meaningful punches. McAllister appeared to hurt Amaoko in the 5th with a sharp right hand; however, he apparently deemed it unnecessary to jump all over a challenger who appeared clearly out of his depth and thoroughly undeserving of a title shot. However, from the 7th onwards, Amaoko began to respond rather defiantly to McAllister's efforts, and appeared to shade some very slightly more interesting rounds. This trend continued up until the 11th, when McAllister chose to start throwing some shots again as Amaoko retreated back into his shell. McAllister threw about 100 more punches, while Amaoko landed at a slightly higher percentage (17% to McAllister's 16%).

After the fight, McAllister was clearly disappointed with his performance, apologising to the paying public and declaring himself "absolutely gutted" with "one of the worst performances of [his] career". Quite frankly, if McAllister cannot thoroughly outbox and get a guy like Amaoko out of there early, there doesn't appear to be anywhere further for him to go. However, he's one of those guys who thoroughly deserves his chance after all he's been through, as alluded to regularly by tonight's Sky commentators (no comedy of Jim Watt, unfortunately). The judges scored the bout 116-112 and 117-111 twice.