By “Big” Nate Anderson: Undefeated super middleweight Dimitri Sartison (22-0, 14 KOs) stopped Argentinian Pablo Daniel Zamora Nievas (19-3-1, 13 KOs) in the 8th round on Saturday night at the Brandberge Arena, Halle an der Saale, in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. Referee Manfred Kuechler halted the fight at 1:46 of the 8th round shortly after Nievas had been staggered by a right hand from Sartison. Nievas, however, looked to be okay at the time of the stoppage, but the referee had perhaps seen enough as Nievas had been hurt by big shots in the previous round but had somehow stayed up right taking abuse.
In the first round, Sartison, 28, originally from Rudny, Kazakstan and now living in Hamburg, Germany, threw mostly jabs. Nievas applied a lot of pressure, throwing punches to the body and head and clearly out-working Sartison. It was a close round and difficult to score but due to Nievas throwing the harder shots, I gave the round to him.
Sartison was busier in the 2nd round, throwing hooks to the body and excellent left-right combinations. His shots weren’t what I would call particularly powerful, but were hard enough to keep Nievas on the outside where he was less effective with his own shots. Sartison, as in the previous round, threw a lot of jabs in a machine gun-like manner. In some ways, Sartison reminded me a little of Felix Sturm, the WBA middleweight champion who also is based out of Germany, although Sartison didn’t display all the running and side to side movement that Sturm often uses in his bouts. Nievas did very little in this round.
Nievas came out strong in the 3rd round, looking like a completely different fighter as he threw combinations to the head of Sartison. Nievas kept at this past for half the round, and showed little care about defense during this time. This would lead to a problem for him when he walked into a perfect left-right combination from Sartison that badly staggered. Seeing that Nievas was hurt, Sartison landed a flurry of punches that sent Nievas threw the ropes head first, where he hung helpless in between the ropes. The referee then stopped the action and disentangled Nievas from the ropes, giving him a standing eight count. After reinserting Nievas’ mouthpiece, which had been knocked out during the bombardment, the action resumed. However, Nievas was still staggering around the ring and in bad shape for the remaining seconds of the round. Lucky for him, the round ended seconds later.
In rounds 4-6, Sartison focused on throwing his jabs, not worried about going for a knockout. It seemed that he could hurt Nievas any time he wanted to but Sartison didn’t seem to be concerned with it. He appeared to be content just shooting his jab repeatedly at Nievas and piling on points.
In the 7th round, Sartison again staggered Nievas, this time with a big right hand. Sartison followed up with a flurry of shots, but was unable to land a finishing shot on Nievas, who staggered all around the ring while trying to fend off punches.
Nievas looked good in the opening moments of the 8th round, as he landed left and right hand shots to the head of Sartison. He appeared completely recovered from his earlier problems in the bout. However, Sartison landed another big right hand that once against staggered Nievas. Sartison came after him and landed a jab and a combination as Nievas retreated to the ropes. At this point, the referee had seen enough and stopped the fight 1:46 of the 8th round. As I mentioned earlier, Nievas seemed to okay, and looked no different than in the earlier situations where he’d been hurt. However, the referee perhaps decided to save Nievas from further punishment because he was clearly on his way to losing the fight.