By Jim Dower: Undefeated middleweight prospect Sergiy Derevtanchenko (6-0, 4 KOs) defeated journeyman Elvin Ayala (28-7-1, 12 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision on Friday night on Showtime’s ShowBox series at Bally’s in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Derevtanchenko won by the scores of 80-72, 80-71 and 80-71.
Derevtanchenko had Ayala hurt in the 8th round, and was able to unload on him with a series of hard shots. However, Derevtanchenko’s lack of hand speed, huge punching power, and his inability to throw enough combinations prevented him from getting the knockout.
The fight was competitive in the first two rounds, as Ayala continually moved and jabbed to keep Derevtanchenko on the outside. But from the 3r round on, Derevtanchenko pressured Ayala and nailed him with hard shots to the head and body.
Overall, Derevtanchenko looked decent but far from great. I consider Arif Magomedov to be a better fighter than him with superior punching power, boxing skills and talent.
Derevtanchenko is a good fighter, but he seems to lack the talent that I see in Magomedov. Neither of these fighters are anywhere close to the level of Gennady Golovkin is in my view. He’s simply a far superior fighter than either of these guys.
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In other action on the card, middleweight prospect Ievgen Khytrov (11-0, 10 KOs) overcame a slow start to come back and stop the faster Nick Brinson (17-4-2, 7 KOs) in the 8th round on a controversial stoppage. Khytrov hurt Brinson with a left hand, and caused him to take a knee after unloading on him with a storm of punches. Instead of the referee Earl Brown allowing Brinson to collect himself and get up and continue fighting after he’d intentionally taken a knee, the referee stopped the fight at 2:31 of the 8th round.
It looked like a blown call from the referee Brown, because Brinson should have been given the chance to recover from the blows while he had taken a knee. I’m not sure what Brown was thinking in pulling the plug on the fight but it appeared that he made a mistake. The scores at the time of the stoppage were 70-62 and 68-65 for Brinson, and 66-66 on the third card.
I had Brinson winning the first four rounds, but then losing rounds 5 through 8. I thought Khytrov had done enough to get the victory if the referee hadn’t stepped in and stopped the fight prematurely. Khytrov had Brinson hurt in the 5th, 6th and 8th rounds. It should have been enough for him to win by a decision if it had gone to the cards. It was a bad stoppage, but the right guy won the fight.
Khytrov needs to make a lot of improvements in his game if he wants to go anywhere in the middleweight division, because he lacks hand speed, and he can be out-boxed, as we saw with him getting dominated by the faster Brinson. This should have been someone that Khytrov blew away with ease if he was the real deal. But the fact that he was getting dominated by Brinson in the first four rounds doesn’t bode well for Khytrov’s future in the sport. I think he’ll be a good Alfredo Angulo type of middleweight, but that’s about all I can see from him. Khytrov’s hand speed is too slow, and he’s too much of a plodder for him to go anywhere in the middleweight division in my opinion. Unless Khytrov can become more relentless, attack more, and develop better power, I don’t think he’s going to be abvle to rise up to be a top contender in the 160lb division.
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Light welterweight Regis Progrias (15-0, 12 KOs) defeated Amos Cowart (11-1-1, 9 KOs) by an eight round decision. The final judges’ scores were 79-71, 80-72 and 80-72.
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