Boxing: Christian Mbele finished the job in 40 seconds against Mark Heffron

Shawinigan, QC – Forty seconds is all Christian Mbele needs to get rid of Mark Heffron and, above all, make his fight against Sergiy Derevyanchenko official.

The stakes were high in Saturday night's Eye of the Tiger final at the Gervais Auto Center and the French-born Montrealer delivered the goods by eliminating his Australian rival with a kick to the liver that very few boxers would be able to take.

“After seeing some of his fights, I knew he couldn’t take a lot of physical work,” Mbele (27-0, 23 KO) explained after the win, his 27th in as many fights since the start of her career. As my coach always says, I try to put money in the bank (hitting body, editor's note) at the start of the fight and benefit from it afterwards. »

His coach Mark Ramsay added: “I expected it to be much longer than that,” as he was keen to point out that it was the assistants Samuel Decarie-Drolet, Luc Vincent Ouellet and Sean Collinson who prepared the French athlete for this confrontation against him. Heffron (30-4-1), where he was busy with Artur Beterbiev before the latter was injured in training.

“However, I am very satisfied, because Christian did not leave any information tonight. There is nothing to be learned from a fight like this when it lasts 40 seconds. »

Despite everything, Mbele had time to analyze what had allowed him to win.

The 29-year-old said: “I felt like I shook him early in the fight after I hit him in the head and then he put his hands up.” It's never easy to recover from a blow like that and then I managed to hit him in the body… especially since it's my specialty. »

So Mbele easily defended his WBC Americas Continental and WBA International super-middleweight belts and put in a second stunning display following his January 13 performance against Rohan Murdock at the Videotron Centre. The Australian was forced to retire after the sixth round after complete and complete control.

“I'm a little tired of talking about messages,” Mbele answered when asked if he once again had to attract the attention of the best boxers in his category. I've been sending messages for too long. Everyone knows what Christian Mbele can do in this category. »

'Solid' is likely to return to the Veille Capitale arena on August 17 to face Derevyanchenko in the final of an event broadcast in the US on ESPN, but Camille Estefan did not want to confirm anything before the press conference scheduled for Tuesday.

A former bronze medalist at the 2007 World Championships, the Ukrainian has had several important fights since the beginning of his professional career against Daniels Jacobs, Gennady Golovkin, Jermall Charlo and Jaime Munguia to name a few.