Mullings adjusting to new weight class

WRAY AND Nephew Contender junior middleweight favourite Sakima Mullings says that he needs some time to adjust to his change in weight class.

Mullings, who won the competition in 2014 as a welterweight, won the opening bout of the contest last Wednesday against Canadian Winston Matthews in a unanimous judges’ decision after five rounds, but seemed to have suffered fatigue after the third.

He said that the reason for this was that he was not only adjusting to his new weight, but also facing heavier-hitting boxers.

“I wouldn’t call myself faded, but it’s a learning process and it’s an adjustment process,” he said. “It’s a new weight class for me. I’m fighting bigger, stronger guys, so I’ll go back, listen to my team, look at the tape and we’ll work on certain things and move forward from here. There’s always room for improvement.”

He added that the plan this season is to be hardhitting versus his opponents in each round.

“The game plan is to run over everybody like a DCK truck. Big truck series, we running over everything,” he joked.

Mullings, who all three

It’s a new weight class for me. I’m fighting bigger, stronger guys, so I’ll go back, listen to my team, look at the tape and we’ll work on certain things and move forward ... .

MULLINGS judges scored winning four of the five rounds, said that he felt he should be facing better opponents than Matthews. “Yeah, definitely (it was a mismatch),” he said. “Honestly, me having 22 fights under my belt, it’s definitely a mismatch. I shouldn’t be fighting a guy with only three fights. But my opponent (Matthews) is a tough guy. He’s very durable. I think that I caught him with some clean shots and he stood up to them.”

HAPPY TO BE INJURY FREE

He said that although he was not worried about losing to Matthews, he was happy to have walked away without any injuries after advancing to round two, and now he is going into what he calls “downtime” until it gets started. “We’re coming off three months of work,” Mullings said, “so we’re gonna rest, recover and, for the next match, we’re gonna watch a couple of the fights and then we’ll start training and getting fit. When we find out who we’re (he and his team) gonna fight, we’ll work on a game plan for them.” Mullings will not know his next opponent until the completion of round one of the contest on May 24.