Rated at Middleweight Wins 35 Losses 2 Division Middleweight Martial art Boxing | Nationality Cameroonian
French Wins by KO 21 Height 1.8 m Stance Orthodox stance Total fights 37 | |
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Born 18 February 1984 (age 33)
Cameroon ( 1984-02-18 ) Similar Alfonso Blanco, David Lemieux, Peter Quillin, Curtis Stevens, Michel Soro | ||
Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam (born 18 February 1984) is a Cameroonian-French professional boxer. He is a two-time WBA interim middleweight champion currently in his second reign since 2016, having previously held the title from 2010 to 2012, as well as the WBO middleweight title in 2012. As of December 2016, N'Dam N'Jikam is ranked as the world's fifth best middleweight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, seventh by BoxRec, and eighth by The Ring magazine.
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Early life and amateur career
N'dam N'Jikam won a silver medal in the middleweight division at the 2003 All-Africa Games, losing to Ramadan Yasser of Egypt in the final. N'dam N'jikam also represented Cameroon in the middleweight bracket at the 2004 Olympics, defeating Juan Ubaldo of the Dominican Republic and Andy Lee of Ireland on close countback decisions, but losing in the quarter-finals to eventual gold medallist Gaydarbek Gaydarbekov of Russia. Following the Olympics, and having no means of boxing professionally in his native Cameroon, N'dam N'Jikam moved to France due to the shared language.
At the 2016 Olympics, professional boxers were permitted to compete at the Olympics for the first ever time. As one of the few professionals who entered, N'dam N'Jikam once again represented Cameroon and qualified for the light-heavyweight bracket, but lost in the first round to Michel Borges of Brazil. This was seen as a surprise to many boxing observers, who predicted that amateurs would not fare well against experienced professionals.
Professional career
N'Dam N'Jikam made his professional debut on 4 December 2004, scoring a third-round stoppage against Alexis Culit. On 30 October 2010, having fought mainly in his adoptive France, N'Dam N'Jikam won the vacant WBA interim middleweight title with a close unanimous decision (UD) over Avtandil Khurtsidze. One defence of the title was made on 2 April 2011, which was a UD against Giovanni Lorenzo. However, major controversy arose during the fight when N'Dam N'Jikam was knocked out of the ring by a series of punches from Lorenzo in round five. A WBA official then helped N'Dam N'Jikam back into the ring, which was against the sanctioning body's rules. Lorenzo's team later argued that this should have been grounds for immediate disqualification, as well as disputing the overly wide scorecards.
On 4 May 2012, having vacated the WBA title, N'Dam N'Jikam won the vacant WBO interim middleweight title via UD against Max Bursak. He was later promoted to full world champion status on 25 August, after Dmitry Pirog was stripped of the title for choosing to fight Gennady Golovkin instead of mandatory challenger N'Dam N'Jikam. In his first world title defence on 20 October, as well as his first fight in the United States, N'Dam N'Jikam suffered six knockdowns en route to a UD loss to Peter Quillin. A second opportunity to become world champion came on 20 June 2015, against David Lemieux for the vacant IBF middleweight title. In an action-packed slugfest, N'Dam N'Jikam again endured multiple knockdowns—four in total—but lost a UD.
2016 saw N'Dam N'Jikam reel off four consecutive victories, with a brief pause in August to compete in the 2016 Olympics. On 17 December, he emphatically re-entered the world title scene by becoming WBA interim middleweight champion for a second time, following a brutal one-punch knockout of Alfonso Blanco in only 22 seconds of the first round.