Team Caribbean’s Ramel ‘Sub Zero’ Lewis bombed his way to a clobbering fourth-round technical knockout victory over Fard ‘The Messenger’ Muhammad of Team USA in his return to the Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum Contender Boxing Series at the Chinese Benevolent Association Hall on Wednesday night.

The bout was the sixth of eight preliminary fights of the 16-fight campaign and referee Ransford Burton stopped the fight at 1:46 seconds of the fourth round. This was after handlers of Muhammad surrendered the fight to Lewis by throwing in the towel after Muhammad had taken a battering from the second round. He gave as much as he received and connected with some flush and stinging left jabs and straight rights but that was not good enough to dislodge his more resilient opponent.

With another two fights remaining, Team Caribbean led Team USA five wins to one.

This was the second fight in succession to have ended in such a manner with the fifth fight in the series ending similarly, but in the second round, with the Team America fighter Jose L Guzman succumbing to Michael Gardner from some heavy punches and the towel was thrown into the ring to end the fiasco.

Following a first-round roughhouse sparring match that could have gone either way and in which Lewis received a cut on the left eyebrow, it seemed to have incensed the Team Jamaica fighter and he returned for the second round with ‘blood in his eyes’ and thus began a war of attrition.

At one stage of the second round, Muhammad lifted both hands as if he wanted to say I’ve had enough but the fight was allowed to continue.

At the post-match interview, Muhammad declared that he was hit to the back of the head as if with a sniper shot in the second round and after that “I found it difficult to recognise my opponent and could have done so only by his shorts”.

Lewis said that while his victory was commendable “it failed to please me. I had prepared for a decent fist-to-fist fight, but to change my approach entering the second round and take a bullish action to counteract a similar approach”.

When quizzed about whether he looked a little winded towards the end, Lewis replied: “Nothing of the sort. It was two years away from the ring and my opponent never gave me time to settle, so I had to do things a little different to get the desired approach.

“With most of the ring rust now disappeared you can look for a more polished approach in my next fight,” Lewis promised.