Oleksandr Gvozdyk vs. Tommy Karpency results

By Boxing News - 07/23/2016 - Comments

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By Eric Baldwin: Unbeaten light heavyweight 2012 Olympian Oleksandr Gvozdyk (11-0, 9 KOs) had to get up off the deck from a 1st round knockdown to come back and defeat former two-time world title challenger Tommy Karpency (26-6-1, 15 KOs) by a 6th round knockout on Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view from the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Gvozdyk, 29, dropped Karpency with a right to the body in round six. Referee Kenny Bayless then counted Karpency after he failed to get back to his feet. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:21 of the 6th.

#6 WBC, #10 IBF, #14 WBO Gvozdyk was knocked down in round one by a short right hand to the head from Karpency. Gvozdyk got back to his feet and was clearly hurt. However, he was able to make it out of the round due to there not being much time left. In the knockdown sequence, Gvozdyk was holding Karpency’s head down with his left hand and hitting him with a right uppercut at the time that Karpency nailed him with a right to the head. Gvozdyk wasn’t expecting to get hit because he was holding and hitting. It was an illegal move by the Ukrainian fighter and he paid for it.

Karpency dominated the 2nd round as well in landing a number of hard lefts and rights to the head. Gvozdyk still locked shell shocked from the previous round and wasn’t in the position to go on the attack.

In the third round, Gvozdyk changed his tactics by using shifty foot movement to attack Karpency at angles. This proved to be very successful because the American wasn’t able to land his power shots as well, and he problems with the angles of the punches from Gvozdyk. Karpency’s right eye began to swell in the third as well from the shots he was getting hit with.

Gvozdyk dominated both the 4th and 5th rounds with his power shots and constantly changing angles. Karpency suffered a cut on the bridge of his nose in round five. His nose also started to look like it had flattened from one of Gvozdyk’s punches.

YouTube video

In the 6th, Gvozdyk was hitting Karpency at will up until the time he dropped him with a right to the body.

All in all, it wasn’t an impressive performance from Gvozdyk. He looked slow, not particularly power, and not nearly as impressive as some of the other light heavyweights in the division. WBC champion Adonis Stevenson was much more dominant in his 3rd round knockout win over Karpency last September than Gvozdyk was tonight. I can’t see Gvozdyk beating the better fighters in the 175lb division like Stevenson, Artur Beterbiev, Sergey Kovalev, Andre Ward or Joe Smith Jr., to name just a small handful of fighters. Top Rank can push Gvozdyk all they want, but I don’t see him going anywhere. He’s too limited.