‘The Demolisher’ hammered by Rea
Namibia’s veteran middleweight boxer Lukas ‘The Demolisher’ Ndafoluma on Saturday suffered a unanimous defeat against Britain’s young fighter Bradley Rea during their eight-round middleweight contest at the Newcastle Arena.
Fighting on the undercard of Savannah Marshall’s WBO middleweight world title defence against Femke Hermans, Rea was given a tough workout by the experienced Namibian during their tightly-contested bout.
But the 24-year-old Rea did more than enough to earn a 78-73 verdict on referee Ron Kearney’s scorecard and move to a 13(5)-0 professional record, highlighted by a fourth-round knockdown of Ndafoluma.
“It was a tough fight with a tough man, who was obviously very experienced and been in there at good level. I thought I coped with him quite well. I thought I won every round, and I felt good in there. It maybe wasn’t as exciting as my last two fights, but I got the win at the end of the day,” said Rea.
Ndafoluma asked plenty of questions of Rea in the early rounds as he came forward trying to force the action, but Rea found his range and managed to stay clear of the Namibian.
Rea kept his opponent on his toes by switching from the orthodox to southpaw stance, and that yielded rewards towards the end of the fourth as he sent the 36-year-old Namibian crashing to the canvas with a thudding left to the head as Ndafoluma overreached.
Ndafoluma kept probing away after this to survive the remaining rounds, but Rea was able to assert himself and see out the rest of the contest relatively untroubled. While he was satisfied with his performance, he admitted he still had some areas to improve on.
“It’s something we work on quite a lot,” Rea said of his switching stances. “We tried it out today, sometimes it wasn’t working and I was falling short a bit. So, it’s something we’ve got to go back to the drawing board for to work.
“But the shot I put him down with is a shot we’ve been working on in the gym, and it was nice to get it off in the fight. I got a slight hand injury early on, and had to change my game plan slightly. But we got the win at the end of the day, and I felt I won comfortably.”