(MAR 22)  Susie Q Ramadan retained her Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation super bantamweight title in Melbourne, Australia on Friday night in an action packed ten rounds against New Zealander Michelle Preston.

The scores 98-92, 96-94 and 97-93 didn’t reflect the cliff-hanger qualities in the early rounds of the bout which revealed improvements in both boxers since they first met in November.

Preston was concentrating more on movement, making sure she wasn’t a sitting duck and forcing Ramadan to work for every punch landed. Although Preston’s footwork looked a little ungainly at times she was effective in exchanges, often clipping Ramadan at the end of her combinations, before she had a chance to shift out of range.

Ramadan worked best when throwing long punches and counter rights that capitalized on Preston’s sloppier left hand. But the rounds appeared close and both fighters had a sense of urgency, which made for an exciting encounter. But as in their first fight the tide turned towards Ramadan from the middle rounds when she started landing cleaner and catching Preston with some solid shots that looked like they might have had her in trouble. The final three stanzas were Ramadan’s as she upped the tempo and made the pace.

Once again the Manchester born Preston showed that she was serious about boxing, making a concerted effort to implement ring movement and defense into her game, but the world kickboxing champ wasn’t able to follow through with her plan to take the belt home.