Finnish boxer Eva Wahlström faced off against US opponent Melissa St. Vili in Helsinki Friday night for the super-featherweight World Boxing Council (WBC) title.
Wahlström and her challenger fought a well-balanced duel through all ten rounds, with the judges coming down in the Finns' favour at the end by a close margin, awarding her 288 points to St. Vili's 282.
This latest win is the 22nd consecutive professional bout victory for the 36 year old, born in Loviisa, Finland. She has held the WBC female super-featherweight title since 2015, and previously held the European equivalent title from 2012 to 2015. Wahlström is the first Finn to have won a world title from the World Boxing Council, one of the four major sanctioning bodies in the sport.
The bout was the first that Wahlström participated in as part of her new Team F4L, in which she and her boxer husband Niklas Räsänen are both minority shareholders.
Friday's "No Excuses Fight Night", in which Wahlström's victory was the seventh and final bout of the evening, was originally scheduled to take place at Espoo's Metro arena, but was transferred to Helsinki Kulttuuritalo and delayed by a month when not enough tickets were sold.