Richard Commey’s Lightweight Breakthrough
On February 2, 2019, Richard Commey stopped Isa Chaniev in the second round in Frisco, Texas, to win the vacant IBF lightweight championship.
Richard Commey’s path to a world title included a painful near miss, a long journey away from home and a second chance he seized in emphatic fashion. The Ghanaian lightweight built his name with heavy hands, but his defining moment came in Texas in 2019, when he stopped Isa Chaniev to win the IBF belt.
A title run built across continents
Commey turned professional in 2011 and fought regularly in Ghana before taking his career abroad. In 2014, he beat Welshman Gary Buckland by unanimous decision at London’s York Hall to claim the Commonwealth lightweight title (contemporary results). Two years later he received his first world-title shot against Robert Easter Jr. The split decision went against him, a setback that left Commey waiting for another route to the top.
That opportunity arrived after the IBF title became vacant. On February 2, 2019, Commey dropped Chaniev and finished him in the second round in Frisco, Texas. His first defense came against former champion Ray Beltrán, whom he stopped in the eighth round. Beltrán had missed weight, so the title was at stake for Commey alone. The win set up a major bout with Teófimo López, who stopped him in two rounds at Madison Square Garden that December to take the belt.
Still taking on the best
Commey continued to meet elite opposition after losing the championship. He faced Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2021, drew with José Pedraza the following year and was stopped by José Ramírez in 2023. Those later contests extended a career shaped by world-level challenges, while the title win over Chaniev remains its clearest peak. For the earlier Commonwealth chapter, see the 2014 Commonwealth title report; the Beltrán defense report and WBC’s account of the Ramírez fight trace the next stages. More profiles are in our boxing archive.
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Richard Commey, Boxing, Boxing History, Championship Fights
