By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten #1 WBC cruiserweight mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis (21-0, 17 KOs) smashed previously unbeaten British prospect Simon Vallily (9-1, 0 KOs) in a 3rd round knockout on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. Briedis, 31, dropped the 31-year-old Vallily with a left to the body in round three.
Briedis then tore into Vallily with big power shots after he got up, and punished him in the corner with vicious head shots. The fight was then halted after it was clear that Vallily could no longer protect himself from the huge shots from Briedis. Vallily was still on his feet at the time of the stoppage, but he had just taken seven straight head shots.
The last one was a vicious right hand to the head that had Vallily looking badly hurt, The crowd didn’t like the stoppage naturally, but Briedis had a ton of time in the round to continue to nail Vallily with head shots. He wasn’t going to get tired of hitting him in the head. If the referee hadn’t stoppe the contest, it would have resulted in a clinical knockdown of Vallily.
Late in the 2nd round, Briedis staggered Vallily with a left-fight combination that had him hurt. After the round ended, Vallily screamed something at Briedis with a look of anger on his face. It’s unclear whether this was a primitive intimidation trick to get Briedis to stop braining him with punches or what. Whatever the case, it didn’t work. Briedis started in where he left off at the start of round three in nailing Vallily with painful looking head shots. The fight was really no longer competitive at that point. It was just a matter of when and not if Briedis was going to get a stoppage win. The fight was a massacre at that point.
Round one was competitive, as Vallily used his powerful jab to catch Briedis frequently. Vallily looked pretty good when he was jabbing Briedis to the head. I was remotely impress with Vallily in the opening round. What I wasn’t impressed with was all the rabbit shots that Vallily was landing, It was ugly watching those rabbit punches from Vallily, and I was surprised that the referee didn’t do anything to police them. When Briedis and Vallily would clinch, Vallily would reach around and attempt to club him with rabbit shots. I don’t know what he was doing that for, because he had no hope of knocking him out with a punch like that. Even if Vallily did score a knockdown from a rabbit punch, I don’t think it would have counted. I say ‘I think’ it wouldn’t have counted, because I’m not entirely sure. I’m just glad it didn’t happen.
Before the fight, Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn was talking about wanting to see the Briedis vs. Vallily fight, because he felt that Vallily would give Briedis problems. He didn’t other than landing some nice rabbit shots and some jabs. Other than those punches, it was all Breidis.
Briedis is the mandatory challenger for WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew. He’s supposed to be getting a shot against Bellew soon. What’s unclear is how soon. With Bellew talking about wanting to fight avid Haye next at heavyweight, Breidis could wind up sitting around waiting for a while before he gets his mandatory shot at Bellew’s WBC title, which he should have gotten tonight.
Bellew swerved the fight with Briedis to take on the softer target of Flores. In hindsight, it was a smart decision for Bellew to take on a soft job like Flores rather than Briedis, because he might have been knocked out by the talented Latvian fighter. Briedis is bad news for older fighters like Bellew. We saw what Briedis did to Manuel Charr in knocking him out with a thunderous right hand. I suspect that we’d see the same thing with Bellew getting knocked out by Briedis.
I think the star of the night was Briedis. He looked sensational in stopping Vallily. I don’t expect that Brieidis got much love from the British boxing fans, because he wasn’t fighting Bellew, and his opponent Vallily was an unknown. It didn’t have to be that way. Briedis was due his mandatory shot against Bellew, but instead his promoter Eddie Hearn matched him against the softer target Flores for a sure thing knockout win.
The good news for boxing fans is that Bellew is about at the end of his soft fights. If he takes on Haye next and gets knocked out, then he’ll have to face Briedis at that point in what could be a second straight knockout loss for Bellew or the WCNB might choose to strop Bellew of his title.
When fighters bypass their mandatory challengers to fight someone from the weight classes above them, they’re frequently stripped of their titles if they lose that fight. The question is will the WBC make the move to strip Bellew if he gets whipped by Haye or will they keep him as their WBC champion? My guess is the WBC won’t take the title away from Bellew.