Golovkin Crushes Carvalho, Soszynski Defeats Bennama – Boxing Results

By Boxing News - 07/14/2009 - Comments

golovkin2353By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated middleweight contender Gennady Golovkin (17-0, 14 KO’s) was impressive in taking out Brazilian John Anderson Carvalho (19-4-1, 11 KO’s) in a 2nd round stoppage on Saturday night for the vacant World Boxing Organization Inter-Continental middleweight title at the Nuerburging race track, in Nuerburg, Germany. Golovkin was especially impressive taking out Carvalho, a fighter who had lasted the full 12 rounds in a losing effort against Sebastian Zbik a year earlier in August 2008.

Golovkin, 27, who won the Silver Medal for Kazakhstan in the 2004 Olympics, was never in trouble against the badly over-matched Carvalho, and rarely getting hit by him in the two rounds of the fight. Golovkin, who’s ranked number #3 in both the World Boxing Association and WBC, and #4 in the WBO, hurt Carvalho with a left to the body in the 2nd round and then followed with another left to the head that put Carvalho down for the count. The bout was stopped by referee Raul Caiz.

Golovkin looked sharp in the opening round, jabbing Carvalho to the head and circling the ring. Carvalho did little in the round and looked to be in the survival mode afraid to throw anything for fear of being countered by the powerful shots from Golovkin. In the 2nd round, Golovkin began to go after Carvalho, tagging him with big punches to the head in the way of uppercuts and working him hard to the body with hooks.

Carvalho was in the full survival mode and was looking to cover up to avoid getting taken out. However, Golovkin marched forward and succeeded in backing Carvalho up against the ropes with a series of uppercuts to the head. Once he had him there, Golovkin landed a huge left to the midsection and then a big left uppercut that put Carvalho down. The fight was then stopped by referee Raul Caiz.

Ranked #3 in the WBA, Golovkin will soon be getting a shot against Sturm in 2010 unless Sturm is beaten before then by someone like Anthony Mundine.

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In other action on the card, undefeated Polish light heavyweight Gregory Soszynski (16-0-1, 7 KO’s) defeated journeyman Karim Bennama (17-13-2, 4 KO’s) by a 8-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 78-76, 76-74 and 78-74. Soszynski, 28, hardly impressed in grinding out the decision, showing very little power and getting beaten up a little by Bennama.

Although Bennama is known for being a tough customer, it wasn’t promising that Soszynski had to struggle so hard to get the win over him. This should have been a fairly easy fight for him. After all, German light heavyweight Juergen Brahmer was able to take Bennama out in the 9th round a year ago in April. Brahmer had little problems with Bennama.

Then again, Brahmer is a much bigger puncher than Soszynski, though. The judges had Soszynski winning the fight by a fairly close margin. However, I had him winning all eight rounds, despite the battering that he took from Bennama. By the 3rd round, Soszynski’s eyes began to show swellings underneath both of them from the heavy shots from Bennama.

However, Soszynski was able to control the fight by staying close to Bennama and hitting him constantly with uppercuts, which appeared to be Soszynski’s favorite punch because he seemed to throw nothing but uppercuts.

Getting the win was good, but Soszynski is going to have to find some more power if he wants to make a mark in the light heavyweight division. He’s too weak to compete with the best fighters in the division at this point and needs to find a way to get stronger or else he’ll receive similar beatings in the future.