Mullings: Ten pounds down, 4 to go!

Reigning Wray and Nephew Contender Series champion Sakima 'Mr Smooth' Mullings said that he is only four pounds away from meeting DeMarcus 'Chop Chop' Corley's demands, in order to face him sometime next year.

Local boxing fans have wanted to see both fighters face off since Corley won The Contender in 2016, but various difficulties existed in making the bout a reality. The most significant of these being that both fighters compete in different weight classes, with Corley a natural super lightweight at 140lb, and Mullings a natural junior middleweight at 154lb.

In July, Corley had said that unless Mullings came down to 140lbs there would be no fight. Corley said that at 43 years old, he has no reason to fight someone above that weight, as money is not even his priority anymore.

Mullings said that he had no problem with the demands, as he felt it would be an honour to face the former WBO light welterweight champion. Last month, in getting prepared to face Corley, Mullings competed in an exhibition bout with local boxer Ramel 'Sub Zero' Lewis in Mandeville. This was a 'catchweight bout' meaning that the fighters competed outside of a conventional weight class. This is because the boxers agreed to meet each other at 144lb, between the super lightweight (140lb) and welterweight (147lb) classes.

There, Mullings secured a win in the third round. Yesterday, he told Star Sports that having that match did him a favour in managing his weight.

Conventional fighter

"In the last three months, (since The Contender) I've been busy. I've been working and I took off 10lb (meaning he went down to 144lb) and I have four pounds to basically go," Mullings said. "With another two or three months to prepare for Chop Chop, it would be no problem to get the other four pounds off and be ready for that opportunity."

"Sub Zero is a conventional fighter and Chop Chop is very sleek in his approach. Sub Zero is more of a brawler so we definitely weren't looking at him as a measuring stick stylistically. We were only looking to see how much weight we could come down from the 154lb tournament (The Contender) and how close we could get to 140."

Mullings said that he would have liked to have one more fight before the end of 2017 to continue his weight management, but said that it does not look very likely at the moment.

Corley is expected to defend his UBF All America Welterweight title against American Rynell Griffin in Mississippi, next Saturday.