Former junior-middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (32-1 19KO’s) took another step towards a shot at a second world title with a hard fought victory over Christophe Canclaux (40-3 25KO’s) of France , winning a unanimous decision that read 117-110 on both Montreal judge's scorecards while Charles Chenouf of France had it a lot closer at 115-113 Saturday night at the Montreal Casino.

This was the second fight back for Alcine since losing his WBA title to Daniel Santos in July 2008 by way of sixth round knockout. Alcine has clearly knocked off some of the ring rust that so prevalent in his first fight back in September versus Eric Mitchell.

“It was an intense bout,” said the victor afterwards, “I’m very pleased with the result, I was happy compared to my performance in my last bout, but I feel I can be better than that.”

The Laval Quebec fighter controlled most of the action from the middle of the ring against a very tough aggressive Canclaux who looked to be fighting the last half of the fight with a possible broken jaw.

“I didn’t expect him to be so rough,” said Alcine. “He was very dirty, always hitting me behind the head.”

Canclaux was clearly the aggressor to start the fight, bull-rushing the Montreal fighter every chance he got and hitting behind Alcine’s head on numerous occasions and being admonished by referee Marlon Wright numerous times, receiving two official warnings. With the antics continuing into the next round, Wright had little choice but to deduct a point from the French fighter.

With Canclaux racking up the warnings and having already been deducted a point, Alcine was able to start to control the action in the second round, establishing distance between himself and his hard charging opponent, landing some solid right hands in the process.

A fairly even third round gave way to a fourth that had referee Marlon Wright pleading with Canclaux to stop the blows behind the head, hoping that the fighters settle things inside the ring and not have the bout decided on point deductions or disqualification. The round saw the Haitian born Alcine stumble his opponent with a right hand and sneak in a pair of effective lefts while Canclaux was pinned on the ropes. The former European champion did his best to jump inside and administering some good work to the body but the pace looked like it was affecting the fighter who was breathing hard as he returned back to his corner.

Alcine was able bring things back to the center of the ring in the second half of the fight, firing off his jab and looking more like the fighter who recently wore the WBA world championship belt.

The victory against Canclaux who was rated top-ten going into the fight by three of the major sanctioning bodies is expected to propel the Montreal back into rankings and into the mix for a second world championship. He is expected to be ranked third by the WBC according to promoter Yvon Michel and winning the WBO Intercontinental belt should also place him close to the top with that organization as well. Canclaux was ranked #4 by the WBC, #6 by the WBA and #9 by the IBF and was European champion between 2003 and 2007.

With Alcine controlling things effectively in the centre of the ring and starting to put his shots together, Canclaux often had a hard time following up anytime he would land anything effective, too tired to press the action further. Alcine ate a big left in the seventh but did an effective job of tying his opponent, preventing any further damage.

Alcine managed a huge right hand in the 8th that brought roars from the casino crowd and showed the power differential between the two a round later when the pair exchanged simultaneous rights with the hometown fighter able to drive Canclaux into the corner with his shot.

In fact, while not scoring any knockdowns on the night, Alcine’s power was written all over his opponents face who had a badly swollen and bruised left cheek and a suspected broken jaw. Canclaux was taken to the hospital after the fight.

The former world champion was able to stumble Canclaux a number of times down the stretch but was forced to the scorecards as the Frenchman put on a tenacious performance, able to absorb the best Alcine was able to offer and coming back a number of times.

If you wish to contact the author of this article, email Dave Spencer at FightNews Canada