By Jim Dower: WBA World cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev (29-1, 22 KOs) proved to be too powerful for IBF cruiserweight champion Victor Emilio Ramirez (22-3-1, 17 KOs) in stopping him in the 2nd round on Saturday night in their unification match at the Khodynka Ice Palace in Moscow, Russia.
Lebedev, 36, knocked Ramirez down with a flurry of head shots in the 2nd round. After Ramirez got back up, Lebedev unloaded on him with a blizzard of power shots that resulted in referee Steve Smoger stepping in to halt the fight at 1:57 of the round. It appeared that Ramirez had gone down a second time when he reached down with both gloves and touched the canvas to keep from falling. Smoger didn’t count it as a knockdown, but he did stop the fight moments later.
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#10 WBC cruiserweight contender Dmitry Kudryashov (19-1, 19 KOs) got back to the winning ways with a 4th round stoppage win over Julio Cesar dos Santos (30-6, 27 KOs). Kudryashov knocked Dos Santos down with a hard right uppercut to the head in the 2nd round. Kudryashov continued to batter the overmatched Dos Santos with hard head and body shots until knocking him down in the 4th round with another big right hand to the head. The fight was then stopped after Dos Santos’ corner pulled the plug on the fight at 1:48 of the round.
It was a good win for the 30-year-old Kudryashov, but he’s still very slow and vulnerable. He had been knocked down in two rounds last November by Olanrewaju Durodola. Nothing in tonight’s performance against Dos Santos would suggest that a second fight against Durodola would be any different. Kudryashov is just too slow and hittable for his own good. He’ll beat the 2nd tier fighters like Dos Santos, but when steps it up against better fighters, I suspect he’ll continue to struggle.
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Unbeaten #9 WBA light heavyweight Dmitry Bivol (7-0, 6 kOs) defeated WBA interim WBA champ Felix Valera (13-1, 12 KOs) by a surprisingly easy 12 round unanimous decision. The judges’ scores were 119-107, 119-107 and 116-111. The 25-year-old Bivol showed nice hand speed in the fight, and was very elusive. In the 6th, he dropped Valera with a flurry of punches. The bleeding Valera continued to fight, but he struggled with the speed of Bivol throughout.
In the 8th round, Bivol dropped Valera for the second time in the fight.
Bivol is someone to watch in the light heavyweight division because he looks hard to beat right now. Bivol might have problems with a puncher, but he handled the hard hitting Valera with ease tonight. Bivol is from Tokmak, Kyrgyzstan. With the way Bivol looked tonight, I would favor him against most of the light heavyweight contenders in the division.
The win for Bivol puts him on crash course with WBA World light heavyweight champion Jurgen Brahmer. That would be a fight I would like to see.
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#15 WBC cruiserweight contender Rakhim Chakhkiev (25-2, 18 KOs) struggled to defeat journeyman Tamas Lodi (18-7-2, 15 KOs) by an 8 round unanimous decision. The judges scored the fight 79-73, 80-72, and 80-72. Chakhkiev, was coming off of a 5th round knockout loss to Ola Afolabi in his last fight in November of last year. Chakhkiev used a much different style of fighting tonight in beating Lodi, as he used constant movement and showboating. The style looked like a waste of time for Chakhkiev because all it did was let Lodi hang around for the entire fight. If Chakhkiev had gone forward and slugged like he normally does, he would have likely blasted Lodi out quickly. Instead, Chakhkiev landed pot shots and wasted energy moving frequently to avoid Lodi’s shots. The result was Chakhkiev looking tired, and getting knocked off balance when getting hit with shots while on the move.
Other boxing results on the card:
Umar Salamov UD 12 Bob Ajisafe
Stanislav Kashtanov TKO 2 Tomasz Gargula
Alexey Papin UD 6 Yury Bykhautsou
Dilmurod Satybaldiev UD 12 Claudio Ariel Abalos