Rabat – The Moroccan boxer Mohammed Rabii has, as ever, secured another impressive victory, claiming his fifth victory in five professional boxing matches and maintaining his momentum among the invincible breed of the “noble sport.” Once again, the KO man—he won three of his previous four matches by KO—knocked out the Italian veteran Giuseppe Lauri in a third round hugely dominated by the Moroccan’s formidably powerful punches.
At the Palais Des Sports in Marseille, France, and on an occasion dubbed “the evening of the year” by promoter Sebastien Acaries, who was speaking in terms of the boxing quality and physical prowess exhibited by the fighters, the 24-year old Moroccan overpowered the Italian, forcing him, in the third round, to withdraw from a fight that could have taken eight rounds.
Moroccan commentators have compared Rabii to Mohammed Ali, calling him “Morocco’s Mohammed Ali.” International boxing commentators, for their part, have dubbed him “the rising star,” “the developing pearl of the boxing industry. Comparison to a gigantic legend is surely heavy for the young and growing shoulders of the Bronze winner at the 2016 Rio Olympics; yet, should the Moroccan uphold this aura of overwhelming invincibility, his sure-to-come future achievements may make the Mohamed Ali analogy plausible, valid, and far from the farfetched dream that some now think it is.
“I am a shy person. But inside the ring, I am a totally different person,” Rabii once said in the aftermath of another impressive KO victory late last year. For now, his records—outstandingly knocking out his opponents—are backing him up: He is of a rare species inside the ring.
