Stiffest test yet for menacing Abubaker
Muscled Abubaker with manager Anthony Manning
AMIR Abubaker is certainly one very menacing middleweight.
We have discovered one thing about the Kurdish KO king – he hits with wrecking ball power.
What he’ll be like when someone really battles back remains to be seen, although the man himself has no doubt major titles await.
After only three bouts, it’s very early days for Amir, who runs barbers shops in Coventry.
The 24-year-old has been handed a decent test on manager Anthony Manning’s March 2 Eastside Rooms, Birmingham, show.
Abubaker faces Slovenian Aljaz Venko, a boxer who has taken red-hot prospect Aaron Bowen the full distance and has won five of 11 (one draw). Venko has mixed in decent company and has never failed to hear the final bell.
“It’s going to be a tough fight,” said Abubaker. “He comes to fight.”
Amir’s power makes it hard to get meaningful matches and Manning told me: “You wouldn’t believe the names we’ve put forward.”
But the fighter is convinced his time will come, but not at middle. “One hundred per cent,” he said, “with day before weigh-ins, I’m a super-welter (light-middle).
Amir is a man who believes he’s destined for very big things. For starters, he wants to become the first Kurdish world champ. That’s just for starters.
He passionately believes he deserves more support from his home city.
He arrived here from war-torn Iraq as a four-year-old and says of those early years: “My family were fighters – not boxers, but freedom fighters. They’ve told me stories, but I was too young (to remember).”
A product of Coventry’s Christ The King amateur club, Amir lost a handful of 33 contests, the list including a battle with top international George Liddard.
“The power I have is a bit of a bonus,” he said. “The raw aggression I bring into the ring is my real strength. I believe you do something 100 per cent or not at all. That’s why I’m in boxing.
“Every gym session I’m getting better in terms of strength and skill. I want to be as good as I can possibly be.”
March 2 represents a step-up – and Abubaker believes he’ll put on a performance that will send shockwaves through the Midlands fight scene.