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Shabaz Masoud said “there’s more to come” after winning his all-Shropshire fight with Liam Davies to claim the IBO super-bantamweight title on a split decision in Birmingham.
One of the judges at the bp pulse LIVE (formerly the NEC) scored the fight 115-113 in favour of champion Davies, but the other two had it 115-113 and 116-112 for Shabaz.
While Davies, 28, was made to suffer his first defeat from 17 fights, fellow 28-year-old Shabaz repeated his two previous wins over Davies in their amateur days to remain unbeaten after 14 professional fights.
“I’m the underdog that made it and there’s more to come,” Shabaz told BBC Radio Shropshire.
“In one of the pre-fight press conferences Liam said, ‘I hope you’ve got the dog in you.’ I certainly proved just that. And I want to get better.
“I want to get in the ring and not even get touched. I already said to my coach Ben Davison that I can’t wait to get back in the gym and work on that.”
Shabaz, originally from Stoke-on-Trent, won a national title as an amateur but his pro career has been stop-start, blighted by injury and inactivity.
Having now signed for Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom team, he has been trained in Essex by Davison, who has previously been a cornerman for Anthony Joshua and coached Tyson Fury, another ex-world heavyweight champion.
But Shabaz remains close to his Telford roots at the Wellington Boxing Academy, where he was raised, near to their Donnington Boxing Club rivals, where Davies learned his craft.
“I said to Liam, we’ll meet up, we’ll go for some food and get the two gyms together,” added Shabaz.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about community. The amateur gyms, the grass roots. It’s about getting everyone together. That’s what we need to do.”
Analysis – How good can Shabaz Masoud be?
BBC boxing summariser Richie Woodhall, Shropshire’s former world super-middleweight champion:
“Shabaz can go all the way. If we were talking about Liam Davies going on and becoming a genuine world champion, then Shabaz Masoud now he’s in the driving seat, he’ll get better from this. So how good can he be?
“It was won on the counter-punching ability of Shabaz, who boxed a perfect contest on his backfoot.
“He waited for Davies to overreach and overstretch. He made mistake after mistake and got caught.
“Liam went into the fight too emotional. He let it get to him. He’ll learn from it most certainly because he is a very good fighter.
“He punches very hard but emotion just got the better of him. He’s relied on his power far too much, thinking he’s going to knock the opponent out. It just didn’t happen and the more he was trying, the worse it got.
“But he’s still young enough to come back and be a genuine world champion. That was the IBO title. That’s the least recognised crown. There’s four main world titles and he’s still good enough to win.”
Richie Woodhall and Shabaz Masoud were talking to BBC Radio Shropshire’s Mark Elliott