Paulus 'Hitman' Moses said he tried his best against Malcolm Klassen on Saturday morning, but it was not good enough as the South African won the fight on a unanimous points decision over 12 rounds.

The three judges scored the fight 115-110, 116-110, 113-112 in Klassen's favour after he outboxed Moses for most of the fight, to win the vacant WBO Africa lightweight title.

“It was a close fight - I tried to throw my punches and I did it, but the judges decided in Klassen's favour. I was not surprised by his power - I tried my best, but maybe I was just not good enough,” he said.

“Maybe I took too long or maybe I didn't throw enough punches, but it was a close fight because if you look at the scorecard it was close according to one judge. I think I won the last four rounds but maybe he won the other rounds, even though they also deducted some points from him,” he added.

Moses' trainer, Nestor Tobias said they would discuss Moses' future now.

“That is boxing - you get your good nights and your bad nights and this was a bad night for the Hitman. He didn't come out like we expected him to come out and he was not getting into the fight, most of the time he was defensive. But we'll go home now and talk about his future - Hitman is not a young man anymore, but I don't want this fight to spoil the whole occasion tonight, we worked hard to promote this event and we put a lot of effort in,” he said.

“I'm not disappointed, I'm a happy man right now and Hitman is a happy man and I'm sure everybody is happy and enjoyed the fight. It's one of those nights - it's like a first division team beating a premier league team, and it can happen all over the world. We cannot take anything away from Klassen, he did a good job and had a good game plan and it worked for him,” he added.

Klassen said he had studied Moses' fights and was well prepared for the fight.

“I watched his tapes and worked on a couple of things and I knew my left was going to work. I thought that coming to Namibia I would lose here, because I've heard a lot of stories about Namibia. But I'm thankful for the people who came in numbers to support us,” he said.

“I fought against a brilliant guy, he's a brilliant fighter. I worked mostly on my left hook and that's why I say he's a brilliant fighter - a lot of guys when I hit them with that left hook, they don't get up but he was still there… I'm open for a rematch but it's all about the money - if they want it they have to pay me,” he added.