Naseem Hamed vs. Vuyani Bungu
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| Date | 11 March 2000 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Olympia London, London, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | WBO and Lineal Featherweight Championship | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hamed wins via 4th-round knockout | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Naseem Hamed vs. Vuyani Bungu, billed as Capital Punishment, was a professional boxing match contested on 11 March 2000, for the WBO and Lineal featherweight championship.[2] The bout took place at the London Olympia.
In his previous fight, Naseem Hamed defeated César Soto to add the WBC featherweight championship to his own WBO version of the title.[3] Hamed had originally hoped to keep both titles, however, at the time the WBO was not a major sanctioning body. As a result, the WBC refused to allow Hamed to hold his title with the WBO's, and he was subsequently stripped of the honor in January 2000.[4][5] Shortly after Hamed's victory over Soto, his team began negotiations with former WBO super-bantamweight champion Junior Jones to be Hamed's next opponent for a scheduled March 11 fight.[6][7] Jones, however, refused the terms of the contract and the fight was ultimately cancelled in January 2000.[8] Only a week after the cancellation of the Hamed–Jones fight, it was announced that Hamed and then-current IBF super bantamweight champion Vuyani Bungu would meet instead.[9] The fight between Hamed and Bungu had been over a year in the making,[10] as both fighters had been two of the most successful champions in their respective weight classes. Hamed had been the WBO featherweight champion for over four years and Bungu had held the IBF super bantamweight title for over five years. Hamed, who was coming off of three consecutive lackluster performances, having gone the full 12-round distance with Wayne McCullough and César Soto and going deep into the fight with Paul Ingle before finally knocking Ingle out in the 11th round, promised that he would be "back to my best".[11] Hamed also predicted a knockout or stoppage though he could not say when during the fight it would happen.[12]
The fight
The fight was a return to form for Hamed, who dominated over Bungu throughout the duration of the fight. Bungu tried to be aggressive but, Hamed hit Bungu with a mixture of jabs and power punches and easily won the first three rounds. In the fourth round, Hamed landed a left hand that dropped Bungu to the mat. Bungu attempted to get back up but was unable to beat referee Joe Cortez's 10 count, giving Hamed the knockout victory at 1:38 of the fourth round.[13]
