Thunder Bay’s Jorden Allan upgraded his International Kickboxing Federation status to world champion following a weekend victory in Grand Portage, Minn.
Allan, 22, who held the North American IKF title, faced Ireland’s IKF European Champion Sean Cumiskey in a five-round battle Saturday. Both men fought for the vacant world lightweight amateur title, which Allan won by unanimous decision.
Allan, who trains at Progressive Martial Arts in Thunder Bay, began the bout by scoring a first-round knockdown against his Irish opponent, which allowed the judges to award him the round. The European fighter became livelier in the rounds that followed and he managed to take a round from Allan.
"As the fight went on, I think he started to get warmed up," Allan said. "He got a bit more active and took round three on the judges’ scorecard."
Allan was able to shift momentum back to his corner in the fourth, but lost a close fight in the fifth and final round.
Edging Allan in the fifth would not be enough for Cumiskey. All three judges scored the fight 48-46 in favour of the local kick-boxer.
"I count rounds when I fight, so I knew by round four that he had to knock me down to take the fight," Allan said. "I fought hard in Round 5. He still took (the round), but by the end I knew it was my fight."
Preparing for the match was difficult. While the tae-kwon-do blackbelt has been training and fighting in kick-boxing for about seven years, Allan had never seen Cumiskey in action and had no experience against European fighters.
Coach and Progressive Martial Arts kick-boxing trainer Mitz Bandiera agreed that preparing a strategy for the match was difficult because of their lack of knowledge about Cumiskey.
"I’ve just heard that (Irish fighters) do punch and kick a lot," Bandiera said. "He was more of a slugger than I thought he would be. He really came out hard … I would say he is more of a stalking kind of fighter."
Bandiera said while Allan was going into a fight blind, they did expect that Cumiskey would be a busy fighter. Expecting that, Bandiera said he wanted Allan to be the busier fighter so he could win each round.
He added that Allan likely had the ability to knock the Irish fighter down, which he did in Round 1, but was uncertain if they could knock the European out.
"Just by looking at his face and looking at what he’s done in the ring, I don’t think he can be knocked out," he said. "He’s a tough fighter all around. So, (Allan) did what he was supposed to do. He stuck to it, tried to win every round and that’s the way he works."
Allan isn’t 100 per cent sure when he will defend his title or who he will face to defend it. He does, however, believe the title defence could be within a year and that a rematch against Cumiskey is possible.
"I believe the first rematch will go to the opponent I just fought," he said. "It would be a great experience to go all the way over to Ireland. Not only to go there to represent Progressive Martial Arts, but to go over there and fight for Canada. That would be kind of cool."