1 hour ago
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Few athletes generate excitement more than a genuine heavyweight prospect.
Da’Mazion Vanhouter has garnered attention for securing early stoppage victories in his two appearances under the Zuffa Boxing banner this year.
The undefeated American heavyweight prospect will have even more eyes on him when he faces Raphael Akpejiori in an eight-round bout on the undercard of Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn for Garcia’s WBC welterweight title on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I'm different because the heavyweights are all one-dimensional,” Vanhouter said at the media day on Wednesday. “I got different styles they haven't seen yet, so [I’ll] be able to showcase that hopefully soon.”
Vanhouter (12-0, 9 KOs) has notched six consecutive wins by knockout. Of the six wins, only one went beyond the first round.
The 21-year-old from Albany, New York, barely broke a sweat in his last bout, as he hurt Raphael Murphy with a left hook to the body before landing a barrage of punches that forced referee Tony Weeks to stop it just 1:06 into the first round.
Akpejiori (19-3, 18 KOs) stands at a towering 6-foot-8 and boasts an 84-inch reach. The Nigerian will have about a five-inch height and six-inch reach advantage over Vanhouter.
With the opportunity to fight on a card of this magnitude, Vanhouter believes he can prove he deserves the same level of hype that Moses Itauma and Richard Torrez Jr. had before suffering their first losses this year.
“I feel like this is the fight, especially on the card that it's on, where I can just show America and everybody that I belong where they were [and] where they’re at,” Vanhouter said.
Garcia vs. Benn will air live on Paramount+ in the US and DAZN PPV in the UK and Ireland.
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