Richard Riakporhe offers no excuses after failed mission to land WBO world cruiserweight title
Richard Riakporhe admitted he made “a lot of mistakes” in his failed attempt to win the WBO world cruiserweight title on Saturday night.
The Walworth puncher suffered a first professional loss as he was on the wrong end of a unanimous points decision to Bournemouth’s Chris Billam-Smith.
“No excuses,” Riakporhe told 5 Live Boxing with Steve Bunce. “This is how the game goes – you win some and lose some.
“I’ve lost many times in my life man, this isn’t the first and it won’t be the last but I’m definitely going to be back.
“It wasn’t my night. The best man won on the night – that was CBS. Congratulations to him.
“Things were off. I need to watch the fight back, I was making a lot of mistakes in there. I wasn’t doing the things we trained to do. What can I say? I need to watch it back and just go and improve on it – that’s it.”
Billam-Smith’s trainer Shane McGuigan was left shocked by the closeness of the scorecards. Two judges had only three rounds separating the pair – 115-112 with the other scoring it 116-111.
McGuigan told the same podcast: “Athletically Richard Riakporhe is an unbelievable athlete, so you can’t stand in the right range of him – you’ve got to make sure you are constantly active when you are punching – not look for too many shots as he will try and chop over, punch with you.
“It was 36 minutes of offsetting him, catching and countering every now and again. I cannot believe the scorecards. I was disappointed and shocked – you can’t help but feel hard done by. Sometimes that really frustrates you because it does take away what he was doing in there.
“If he (Riakporhe) had made it slightly more competitive we could have had a split decision, which would’ve been ridiculous.
“Richard understands he lost the fight.”
PICTURE: LAWRENCE LUSTIG/BOXXER
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