Ilford’s Umar Khan inspired to latest victory by doubters

The 21-year-old, appearing on the undercard of Dennis McCann’s WBO inter-continental super-bantamweight title draw with Ionut Baluta, made it seven professional wins on the bounce in Bethnal Green.

And the success was all the more satisfying for the motivated Khan, who was keen to place egg on his army of doubters.

Days before the bout many of Khan’s gym colleagues at LG Boxing Club in Malaga, Spain predicted a win for Nicaragua-born Trana, 28, who is based in the Andalusian city of Cordoba and had won 15 of 25 prior outings.

“There was a lot of talk in the gym that the Kevin Trana fight was too early for me,” said Khan, who is promoted by Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions.

“Trana had knocked out more of his opponents in his fights than I had, so a lot of the gym banter was for a Trana win.

“To be honest it motivated me more and that’s why I decided to fight on the front foot and push him back.

“I knew Trana’s team has seen a lot of my videos of myself sparring so I decided to do something different and fight pushing him back.

“I’m happy with my performance and I think it was very good win. I beat a guy who was a lot more experienced than me.

“He had a full training camp to prepare for me and he was even sparring with a lot of my ex-sparring partners. I knew he came here fully prepared and expecting to beat me, but he was unsuccessful.”