Sena Agbeko Takes The ‘0’ Away From Isaiah Steen!
Taking center stage of a SHOWTIME Boxing telecast, super middleweight Isaiah “Z-Wop” Steen (16-1, 12 KO’s) and Sena Agbeko (27-2, 21 KO’s) went head-to-head.
The match marked Steen’s first fight of the year and his second appearance on Showtime Boxing. It also ended a long fourteen month layoff for Z-Wop who trains out of Cleveland, Ohio with Soul City Boxing. Also training with Soul City is impressive middleweight contender Charles Conwell, who is also Steen’s step-brother.
A TALE OF TWO HALVES
During the early rounds with Agbeko, the more elusive Steen set a casual pace with movement, his somewhat slippery style and very consistent jab. His Ghanaian foe plodded behind him but did not find much traction with his offense in the early rounds. Despite his slicker style, Z-Wop did himself no favors by moving as much as he did and holding as frequently as he did. Not only was Steen holding Agbeko, he clutched him tightly as a family member would a loved one returning home from war. It was both glaring and memorable.
The action did heat up in the middle rounds as Z-Wop regularly threw more offense than his trusty jab. To his credit, Agbeko also found greater offensive success in the middle and later rounds as well. Unlike Steen whose offense was dominated by jabs, the Ghanaian threw almost any and everything but the jab. In particular he was very fond of hard thumping hooks to the body. His straight and overhand right hand also found steady lodging on Steen’s jaw.
When all the blows had been thrown, and the judges tallied the cards, Agbeko was crowned the victor by way of unanimous decision. The score totals were as follows: 97-93, 96-94 and 98-92.
This is no doubt a crushing defeat for Steen who was looking to shed a little ring rust and toss another win on his record. Now he will have to go back to the drawing board and try to figure out how to make up the ground he lost in this prizefight.
As for Agbeko, he just scored arguably the biggest win of his career on the largest stage. So it will be interesting to see where he goes from here.
By: Bakari Simpson
