Yunier Dorticos vs. Dmitry Kudryashov – Results

By Boxing News - 09/24/2017 - Comments

Image: Yunier Dorticos vs. Dmitry Kudryashov - Results

By Jim Dower: Battling in his quarter finals match, WBA World cruiserweight champion Yunier Dorticos (22-0, 21 KOs) scored a sudden 2nd round knockout victory over the powerful but very slow of Dmitry Kudryashov (21-2, 21 KOs) on Saturday night in the World Boxing Super Series at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

(Photo credit: Francisco Perez/Ringstar Sports)

The Cuban Dorticos, 31, landed a single right hand to the head of Kudryashov to send him down on the canvas in round. Kudryashov, 31, was too badly hurt to make it to his feet for the fight to be allowed to continue. The fight was stopped officially at 2:10 of round 2.

The knock on Kudryashov coming into Saturday’s fight with Dorticos was that he was a slow starter with glacially slow hand speed. It was thought that if Kudryashov could get past the first 3 rounds, he would have a good chance of knocking out Dorticos due to his heavy hands. Not surprisingly, Dorticos took advantage of Kudryashov inability to start fast, and he went on to stop him easily.

Round 1 was pretty close between Dorticos and Kudryashov. If I were to pick a winner of the round, I would say that Kudryashov did enough to edge Dorticos due to the big shots he was landing to the body and head. Dorticos threw a few good right hands, but he didn’t have enough muscle on his thin and flabby looking physique to do much damage.

Dorticos’ hand speed was good, but the power wasn’t out of this world good. During the round, Dorticos threw a brief flurry of shots when Kudryashov was against the ropes. None of the punches were big enough to hurt Kudryashov. He took them well and responded with a nice left hook to the body of Dorticos.

Before the knockout, the fight was competitive with both guys landing good shots, and having their moments. Dorticos did not look particularly powerful. He looked like an out of shape light heavyweight with carrying around 20 pounds of fat on his physique. Unlike most cruiserweights, Dorticos’ physique looked smooth the way someone’s body would look when they haven’t been training.

The punch that Dorticos knocked Kudryashov down with was a simple right hand that wasn’t thrown with a lot of power. Kudryashov was throwing a left hand at the time that Dorticos came over the top with a right hand that dropped him. Kudryashov never saw the shot coming, and he was too late to react to it. Once Kudryashov hit the canvas, he was too hurt to get back to his feet to continue fighting. He tried to get up, but he couldn’t beat the count. It was far from a huge shot that Dorticos threw.

It just looked like a right hand thrown while Kudryashov was off balance after having missed with his left hand. Kudryashov was someone that didn’t belong in the WBSS tournament, as he had looked awful in most of his fights. He was stopped by Olanewaju Durodola in the 2nd round in 2015. While Kudryashov came back to win his next 3 fights, he still looked flawed in a major way, especially with his slow hand speed.

“I knew that he was going to come at me and I waited and delivered the shot,” said Dorticos. “Once it landed I knew it was over. I want to prove to the world that I am the best cruiserweight in the world right now.”

We’ll see what Dorticos does when he gets in with a better class of cruiserweight. Dorticos was in the ring tonight with arguably the worst of the 8-man cruiserweight tournament in Kudryashov. We’ll see whether Dorticos can handle the likes of Mike Perez, Mairis Briedis and Oleksandr Usyk.

With the win, Dorticos will now face the winner of the October 21 fight between IBF cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev and Krzysztof Wlodarczyk. This should prove to be a lot more difficult for Dorticos, as those guys can fight. Kudryashov was just a slow, hard puncher without much in the way of boxing skills.

Gassiev is a better version of Kudryashov, but with a little more power in both hands and a far better chin. Dorticos will need to keep his chin tucked if he wants to beat Gassiev. Dorticos look to try and firm up his flabby physique because he’s going to have a really tough time trying to get past the winner of the Gassiev vs. Wlodarczyk. These aren’t the best fighter sin the 8-man World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament, but they’re still very solid fighters.

In looking at the way Dorticos fought tonight, I can’t see him beating Mairis Briedis and Oleksandr Usyk. Those 2 are the class of the tournament. Dorticos will lose badly to both of those guys. Gassiev will give him a ton of problems. Dorticos will take punishment against him. Wlodarczyk is up there in age at 36, but he’s put together some good wins since his loss to Grigory Drozd in winning his last 4 fights. Wlodarczyk recently beat Noel Gevor and Leon Harth.

Dorticos wants to fight Gassiev. I guess he sees him as being a similar fighter as the slow Kudryashov. If Dorticos can land one of his shots on Gassiev, he might stop him too. I don’t think so. Denis Lebedev hit Gassiev a ton of times and was unable to hurt him. Dorticos doesn’t hit as hard as Lebedev, and I don’t think he takes a shot as well as him. If Gassiev is able to land his shots on Dorticos, I think he’ll stop him at some point. Either way, it’ll be a grueling fight for Dorticos, and it won’t be the cakewalk he had against Kudryashov.

“I know that I want to fight Murat Gassiev,” said Dorticos. “I know he’s watching me, and I’ll be watching him. If he can take care of business, I would love to fight him. I’m ready to make that fight happen.”

I don’t know where Kudryashov goes from here. This was his second knockout in the 2nd round in the last 2 years. Dorticos is a decent fighter, but he’s not nearly at the level of the other top guys in the division. If Kudryashov can’t get past guys like Dortcos, then he needs to start planning for a life after boxing because he’s not going to ever win a world title at this rate. I don’t see it happening, even with all the different world titles available in the cruiserweight division. Kudryashov is too slow, and he’s a terrible starter to his fights. He can’t beat any of the high quality cruiserweights in the division with the way he starts out so slowly. You’ve got to be able to start fighting a lot faster than Kudryashov does.