Roarke Knapp had his moments, but ultimately wasn’t able to match Bakary Samaké’s strength or skill as he succumbed in the eighth round in Paris on Friday night.
It was a shattering blow for both Knapp and South African boxing generally, not least because so few local boxers appear to have the goods to deliver on the road.
Knapp had enjoyed a good camp and arrived in the French capital with great confidence, but Samaké’s ramrod jab was a fierce weapon that he wielded at will. The South African fought with tremendous heart, landing several heavy right hands, but by the sixth round the tide had begun to turn.
Roared on by a delirious crowd, Samaké opened a cut on Knapp’s left cheek in the sixth and he began putting maximum torque on his punches. Knapp was game and energetic, but you sensed a lift in the Frenchman’s performance that Knapp wasn’t able to match.
They had fought on reasonably even terms until the sixth with the challenger – Samaké’s WBC Silver junior middleweight belt was at stake – successfully closing the distance. It limited the champion’s leverage, but the moment he was able to wind up his stiff left hand, Knapp was uneasy.
Knapp had shown admirable aggression and pressed the action. Trouble was, it had little effect on Samaké, who walked through it all.
The ending was as sudden as it was surprising. A sharp right hand to Knapp’s body in the eighth was the warning, followed a second later by a whipping left hand to the liver that blew the oxygen out of Knapp – and his chances.
As he sunk bleakly to the canvas, he was in obvious distress, unable to deal with the discombobulating effects of the killer blow. Referee Robert Verwus duly waved off the action – bitter confirmation that Knapp’s best just wasn’t good enough.
He will come again, but for now he must contemplate a long trip home with nothing to show for his bold gamble.
