Ruqsana wins the belt, Tanjila wins hearts on Bangladesh's grandest night for boxing

The crowd went mad as the ring announcer counted down to the end of Round 10 of the title bout on Tuesday. When Anil Kumar, the announcer for the evening, asked the audience who they thought had won the fight, it was surprisingly the Bangladeshi Tanjila who received the louder applause. 

In the end though, Bangladeshi-origin Ruqsana Begum, representing the United Kingdom, beat Tanjila Tanjila of Bangladesh in the enthralling 10-round fight, taking with her to England the WBU Female (Flyweight) Intercontinental Championship Belt.

The result, though, did not come as a surprise, since save for the first three rounds, Ruqsana had dominated the entire match. 

However, as everybody present at the show will tell you, Tanjila fought her heart out and held her own against the veteran fighter and world kickboxing champion. Her prime weapon, the right cross, seemed to be keeping Ruqsana at bay for the first few rounds. Every punch landed clean on Ruqsana's left ear with a resounding "whack". I zoomed in with my camera to get a better look: Ruqsana's ears wore a bright red shade by the end of Round 2. 

But as is the case while fighting experienced boxers, the "Queen of the Cross" gassed out by the middle of the bout and that is when "Warrior Princess" Ruqsana let loose with a barrage of her own punches. 

As the match went on, a group sitting next to me moaned in unison with the rest of the arena as almost all of Ruqsana's punches connected. Tanjila's form broke down and her crosses turned into haymakers — aptly described as "Bangla mair" by someone in the audience — in the later rounds.

I remembered a conversation I had had with a Muay Thai coach in Dhaka just three days ago.

"Obviously Tanjila has no chance against Ruqsana," I had said, knowing absolutely nothing about the Bangladeshi fighter. To this, the coach replied, "You never know. Anything can happen in the fight game."

In the end, we both were right —  and wrong. Yes, Ruqsana won. But Tanjila was no pushover. 

The climax of the bout, and arguably the event as a whole, was when both fighters held the Bangladeshi flag on their shoulders (Ruqsana also held the UK flag). Adnan Haroon, chairman of Bangladesh Boxing Foundation, beamed with pride as the crowd again cheered for the fighters.

The women's title bout had been a success.

Xcel's grandest boxing event yet

After many previous events that found mixed success, Tuesday's Beximco XBC Fight Night could easily be ranked as its greatest event yet. 

As I walked into the makeshift arena at the InterContinental Dhaka, I immediately noticed a who's who of combat sports athletes and trainers from the country. The officials were established martial artists in their own rights, with one of them a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coach, the timekeeper a professional boxer, and one of the officials even having been the first Bangladeshi to compete at ONE Championship — Singapore's premier fighting promotion.

And to my left, it was a who's who of socialites: politicians, businessmen and the "rich kid" crowd all gathered up to watch the exciting fight. For many, it was their first time watching a boxing event. I overheard predictions from the fans sitting around me (uneducated guesses much like my own just a few days earlier). But one thing is for certain, they were all deeply engrossed in the fights, even the undercard matches.

The entrances were grand too. Every fighter had an entourage of dancers accompanying them on the way to the ring as strobe lights above the ring went haywire (there was no epilepsy warning by the way). The dancers did nothing for me, except when one of them ran face first into a flag being carried by a cornerman.

But the fighters delivered on the promise.

In the main card, Sura Krishna Chakma, arguably one of the best Bangladeshi boxers at the moment, made quick work of his Thai opponent, Anan Pongkhet, in the Lightweight division, knocking him out in the 48th second of  Round 2.

A total of 14 participants from Bangladesh, England, France, India, and Thailand competed in the ring across seven different categories: featherweight, light heavyweight, bantamweight, cruiserweight, flyweight, welterweight, and the flyweight title bout.  

The Bangladesh Boxing Foundation sanctioned tournament started off with a six-round featherweight bout between two Bangladeshi Boxers, Utsob Ahmed and Aminul Islam. Utsob clinched the victory over Aminul in a six-round bout. 

Local hero Abu Talha Hridoy made Bangladesh proud as he defeated Indian fighter Ashish Kumar in the Bantamweight category after a 4-round battle.

The first controversy came in the second bout in the light heavyweight category between Jahidul Islam and Shahriar Shanto. Jahidul continued his unbeaten streak against Shanto by TKO in three rounds. The TKO, however, came after Shanto spit out his mouth guard four times, forcing the referee to end the match after repeated warnings of a disqualification.

Then there was the cruiserweight bout where French boxer Eliot Michele dominated Bangladeshi boxer Md Kawsar Ali to secure his pro-boxing debut victory. But the corner stoppage may have come a bit late as Eliot ended up busting Kawser's face open with his power shots. Some of the audience members winced, while one hardcore fan shouted "We want blood!" That fan was not disappointed.

In the seventh fight of the night, Bangladeshi boxer "The Bull" Al-Amin battled against his Indian counterpart Dushyant Shrivastava in the welterweight category. Al-Amin's wife kept shouting words of encouragement from his corner, but the six-round bout ended with Dushyant Shrivastava winning the battle and raising the Indian flag. 

While the fight was an obvious win for Dushyant, one of the judges decided to score the bout a draw and I noticed many members of the audience reacting with confusion to the scorecard. 

The promising Bangladeshi fighter's loss did not sit well with the crowd, but already exhausted from a highly eventful event, they began exiting the arena. 

After the event, Ruqsana showed up in a gown with her belt draped over her shoulders and everyone gathered to take pictures with the champion. 

However, in the world of professional fighting, champions make champions. And her opponent Tanjila may very well be a champion in the making. How would the fight have turned out if Tanjila too had received the same world class training that Ruqsana had?