Ajagba: I waited too long against Sanchez

Nigerian heavyweight Efe Ajagba claims that in his losing battle against Frank Sanchez, he "waited" his opponent for too long and will not repeat this in the upcoming battle with Stephan Shaw on Saturday night. In October 2021, in Las Vegas, Ajagba lost to the Cuban by a wide unanimous decision, having been on the floor in the seventh round.

Stefan Shaw promised before the fight that he would be able to outbox Ajagba (16-1, 13 KOs) in a similar fashion during their 10-round fight in Verona, New York.

"If he tries to do that, I'm not going to just go after him without getting hit," Ajagba promised in an interview with BoxingScene.com. - During the fight with Sanchez, although I don’t want to make excuses, my performance was affected by elbow injuries. Therefore, my loss was natural. But I'm not here to make excuses. I accepted this defeat. I waited too long and just followed him. That's where the problem was. I waited too long and didn't throw punches."

“But in a fight with Shaw, everything will be different. I'm not going to follow him without hitting him. I'll take the center of the ring. This is how I'm going to win this fight, let's see," Ajagba added.

Stephan Shaw (18-0, 13 KOs, 1 NC) replaced Oscar Rivas less than a month before the scheduled date when the Colombian suffered a detached retina during training. The 30-year-old Shaw, in turn, had to fight the Italian prospect Guido Vianello (10-0-1, 9 KOs) also in a 10-round fight. As soon as Shaw replaced Rivas, Vianello agreed to fight Johnny Rice (15-6-1, 10 KOs).

Ajagba thinks Shaw is a "good fighter" but he thinks Rivas (28-1, 19 KOs) would give him a tougher fight.

“I think Oscar is tougher than Shaw,” Ajagba said. - Oscar Rivas is a gifted fighter, and Shaw is just a boxer. That's the whole difference. I think he is not such a tough fighter as Rivas. If you look at my past fights, you will see that I fought tough guys."

After losing to Sanchez, 28-year-old Ajagba underwent surgery on both elbows. Since then, the 2016 Olympian claims to feel like a different fighter. In August last year, he won an early victory in the second round over Josef Darmos (14-6-3, 10 KOs) from Hungary.

“A lot of guys don’t like sparring with me anymore because they feel my strength,” said Ajagba. - They say that after the operation I became different. Jonathan Rice told me that I was different."