The concept of a moral victory may be nice, but it still can’t replace an actual win.
Sulaiman Segawa got the former but not the latter when he was on the short end of a majority decision loss to Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, as many pleaded the case that he deserved to win their September 2024 ESPN-aired contest.
Others at least acknowledged that Segawa had given the highly touted featherweight prospect a very tough fight. Yet it was Carrington who had his hands raised and received the benefits of victory.
It was Carrington who notched two more wins and then fought for an interim world title at 126lbs.
And it is Carrington who will be fighting Carlos Castro for the vacant WBC belt on January 31.
“I feel as if he took my spot,” Segawa told BoxingScene in an interview. “He pushed me like three steps back, which I’m already climbing. I already climbed once. I’m having like two more, then I’m already right back.”
Segawa’s first step back came nearly a year after the loss to Carrington. Last September, he took out once-beaten Bryan Acosta via seventh-round technical knockout.
There is a quicker turnaround for his second step.
On January 30 – one day before Carrington-Castro – Segawa will fight for the second straight time in a ProBox TV co-feature, taking on undefeated prospect Rene Palacios in a scheduled 10-rounder at Live! Casino Hotel Maryland in Hanover, Maryland.
“It’s a big fight for my career,” Segawa said. “A victory over Palacios, I think, sets me up to challenge [for] one of those titles. It puts me right there.”
Segawa is 18-5-1 (7 KOs) but is better than that record might otherwise suggest, something that Carrington learned. Carrington isn’t the only one who was given that hard lesson.
Over the course of nearly 13 years as a professional, Segawa has triumphed over some recognizable names and lost to a handful of others. Some might see those setbacks as signs of a fighter’s limitations. And often that is indeed true. For the occasional exception to the rule, a series of losses to quality opposition can help make a fighter battle-hardened.
In the span of four fights in 2018 and 2019, Segawa went back and forth, losing to one prospect and then handing another their first blemish.
He was outpointed by the 7-0 William Foster III, and then he stopped the 10-0-1 Hector Lopez Jnr. He lost a decision to the 12-0 Abraham Nova, and then he defeated the 10-0 Gadwin Rosa on the scorecards.
That was followed by a majority decision over the 9-1 Elijah Pierce, who himself has grown into a contender at junior featherweight and featherweight.
Segawa’s third loss came two fights later, against Jamaine Ortiz in 2020 via seventh-round TKO, the only time Segawa has been stopped. His fourth defeat came five fights after that, via decision to prospect Mirco Cuello in March 2024.
Less than four months after the Cuello bout, Segawa outpointed Ruben Villa. That was Segawa’s most notable victory yet. Villa was 22-1 at the time, had defeated Luis Alberto Lopez (who would go on to win a world title at 126lbs) and had only been beaten by Emanuel Navarrete in a bout for a vacant title belt.
With the win, Segawa picked up the WBC’s “silver” belt at featherweight, a designation that helps drive more sanctioning fees for the organization, while helping fighters get in better position for a shot at the primary world title. Going into the match, Villa was ranked first at 126lbs while Segawa was 29th. Afterward, Segawa jumped all the way to third, behind only Robeisy Ramirez and Carrington.
Carrington vs. Segawa was a logical next option for both men, then. Their match took place on the undercard of the first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan, which aired on ESPN rather than streaming solely on ESPN+. That meant Segawa’s moral victory was an opinion shared by a wider audience than may otherwise have been the case.
“I felt I won the fight, but they just didn’t give it to me,” Segawa said. “Even more fans feel that I won, and they request for a rematch, which Shu Shu doesn’t want. But, you know, in the future we might get it.”
He returned 11 months later with the TKO over Acosta, who was also coming off a close loss, this one to junior featherweight contender Ramon Cardenas.
“That was a big victory for me, because he [Acosta] was a very young fighter, tactical and very technical,” Segawa said. “But by God’s grace, I managed to put him down.”
After the Carrington loss, Segawa had dropped to No. 5 in the WBC’s rankings and ultimately slipped as far down as No. 7. He is now rated fourth in the wake of the Acosta win, behind Nathaniel Collins at No. 1, Carlos Castro at No. 2 and Cristobal Lorente at No. 3.
His upcoming opponent, Rene Palacios, is not yet rated by any of the four major sanctioning bodies. Palacios, 18-0-1 (10 KOs), is a 24-year-old from Mexico whose only blemish is an eight-round draw nearly three years ago against a 12-5 foe. Palacios is on a seven-fight winning streak and most recently knocked out the 20-8-2 Rafael Rosas Ramirez in three rounds this past August.
Palacios will fight in the United States for only the second time in his professional career. There’s not much footage of him easily findable online.
“He has different names, so you just have to pull up different names to see his videos, but I only managed to get one,” Segawa said of Palacios, whom BoxRec lists under his full name of Rene Osvaldo Palacios Galvan. “He’s a very tactical fighter. He’s very smart. I have to think a lot and I have to make sure I set him up, because he’s very good at setting traps. I just need to adjust my game plan as well. I might try to test him, because I know he’s very tactical, to see how he can keep up with the challenges I set ahead of him.
“He’s still young,” Segawa added. “So people who are young, they’re a little bit very aggressive. In terms of levels, yes, I have a better advantage of having so much experience, but he has the youth on his side. I feel as if he might try to come and shut me down, so I have to make sure I’m very, very smart with my offense.”
This will be Segawa’s second straight appearance within the DMV (D.C., Maryland and Virginia) region. He is from Uganda originally and now is a resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, which borders Washington, D.C. The win over Acosta was in D.C., while this bout with Palacios will take place just up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway at a casino situated between the two cities.
“I'm fighting for the pride, first of all, of the DMV area because that’s the place I represent. I represent my home country, Uganda, because I have a lot of kids who look up to me,” Segawa said. “They know they have an icon up there who is doing boxing, who is great. So I look at becoming a world champion so I can inspire them and inspire some people as well.”
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
