Richard Riakporhe says activity will be key for him after claiming a dominant points win over Krzysztof Twardowski at the SSE Arena on Saturday night.
Riakporhe sent the Pole crashing to the canvas in the final round and secured a 79-72 verdict from referee Chas Coakley, on the undercard of David Avanesyan’s explosive second round stoppage over Liam Taylor.
The 31-year-old ended a near 22-month lay-off and admits he struggled with his timing during the fight.
“I know my ability, I know I could do way better,” Riakporhe told proboxing-fans.com.
“What do you expect? Being out for so long, it was hard to find my timing as well even for the normal shots that I’d normally throw like the one-two.
“But it’s a learning curve and now I’m going to be active.
“He was good at shifting his body weight and he wasn’t scared, he was actually going for it.
“He was tough and I give him a lot of respect. He had some good sparring in the lead-up to the fight and he had a lot of time to prepare.”
It was confirmed post-fight that the former British cruiserweight champion would return against Olanrewaju Durodola for the vacant WBC Silver title on November 20 at the same venue.
The former British cruiserweight champion believes the more active he is the better his performances will be.
“It’s all about activity, we just need to stay active,” Riakporhe added.
“That’s the most important thing. You could see from that performance that I had been out for a while, but it’s all good because we got the rounds in and now I’ve got more confidence in me to just jump straight back in and do better.”
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The Londoner says he was pleased to register a final round knockdown and send a reminder to the division of his power.
“The fans want to see fire, they want to see power, they want to see people get knocked out.
Big knockdown in the final round gets him the W 👊#BOXXER | @SkySportsBoxing pic.twitter.com/BnT4yOfQaW
— BOXXER (@boxxer) October 2, 2021
“I think that’s good, I got that shot in. I’ve never done that before, a catch-counter.
“It shows that we’ve been practising different things and once I get it to a tee, you can imagine what I’m going to be doing in the future.”
Watch the full interview with Richard Riakporhe below:
