By Patrick McHugh: In a competitive fight between two evenly matched contenders, undefeated #2 WBA Yunier Dorticos (21-0, 20 KOs) defeated #3 WBA ouri Kayembre Kalenga (23-2, 15 KOs) on Friday night by a 10th round knockout to win the interim WBA cruiserweight title at the Palais des Sports in Paris, France.
The Cuban Dorticos, 30, hurt Kalenga with a hard right hand in the 10th round. Dorticos then flurried on the bloodied and battered Kalenga until the referee stepped in the stop the contest. Kalenga, 28, was still on his feet and fighting back but he was clearly hurt.
The referee did the right thing because Dorticos was landing big shots in the final sequence and he could have really hurt Kalenga if he’d been allowed to continue throwing shots.
This fight had a lot of good two-way action from start to finish. It was definitely an exciting fight to watch.
Kalenga was knocked down in the 2nd round from a right hand by Dorticos.
Dorticos was docked a point in the 8th for landing a shot after the round had ended.
For Kalenga, this was his second loss in his last three fights. Kalenga was beaten by Denis Lebedev last year in April by a 12 round unanimous decision in a failed attempt to win his WBA cruiserweight title. The fight was close, but Lebedev clearly was the better fighter of the two. Kalenga has good punching power, but his defense was his downfall against Lebedev and Dorticos.
Dorticos is a good fighter but I don’t think he’ll do well against Lebedev. In Dorticos’ amateur days in Cuba, he did well against weaker punchers, but he would fall apart when facing guys that could punch like Artur Beterbiev.
The victory for Dorticos puts him in position to challenge for the winner of Saturday’s fight between IBF cruiserweight champion Victor Emilio Ramirez and WBA champion Denis Lebedev.
In other action on the card, cruiserweight Arsen Goulamirian (17-0, 10 KOs) defeated Andrey Knyazev (13-3, 7 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the WBA Continental title.