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Persoon wins ‘street fight’ following weight change

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Delfine Persoon has registered her first victory since her defeat to Katie Taylor in June.

The former WBC lightweight world champion returned to the ring on a small hall show in West Flanders, Belgium on Monday afternoon registered her 44th career victory.

While Taylor moved up the scales to become a two weight world champion, Persoon moved south and fought at super featherweight – which is probably not surprising considering she came in as light as 130lbs for her undisputed fight with Taylor.

The boxing police officer took on Helen Joseph over 10 rounds and record a points win to pick up the WBA Interim super featherweight crown.

The former long reigning lightweight champion didn’t have it all her own way against the durable Nigerian, but emerged with a comfortable 97-93, 97-93, 98-92 points victory.

Persoon dominated for the most part against the recent super flyweight, but Joseph who came into the fight on the back of six wins did have some success in the final three stanzas, drawing blood from her opponent in the ninth,

35-year-old Persoon has been vocal about wanting to rematch Taylor – and a return does look likely for the Summer. It will be interesting to see if the former WBC title holder will look to pick up a super featherweight title in the mean time, thus joining Taylor as a two weight world champ.

Taylor’s promoter Eddie Hearn has hinted that such is the demand for the return it could be a historic Pay Per View fight.

Speaking after the fight Persoon was somewhat deflated.

The Flemish fighter noted how “I wanted to show what real boxing was and that is not possible with such an opponent. It sometimes looked more like a street fight than a boxing camp. I wanted to take the title with flying colors, but that didn’t work because she was struggling so dirty. “

“I was not completely in shape and am a bit disappointed in myself today,” she added.

The victory sees Persoon improve to 44(17)-2(1)-0 while ‘Iron Lady’ Joseph slips to 17(10)-4(0)-2.

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Jonny Stapleton

Irish-boxing.com contributor for 15 years and editor for the past decade. Have been covering boxing for over 16 years and writing about sports for a living for over 20 years. Former Assistant Sports editor for the Gazette News Paper Group and former Tallaght Voice Sports Editor. Have had work published in publications around the world when working as a freelance journalist. Also co-founder of Junior Sports Media and Leinster Rugby PRO of the Year winner. email: editoririshboxing@gmail.com

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