By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated heavyweight prospect Alexander Ustinov (10-0, 8 KOs) continued with his progress in defeating unbeaten Rudolf Abramyan (11-1, 10 KOs) by an 8-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Sportspalce Lokomotiv, in Kharkov, Ukraine. Ustinov, a 6’7” 300 lb heavyweight from Belasrus now being promoted by the Klitschko brother’s K2 East promotional company, looked very impressive in dominating Abramyan for the entire 8-round bout. It wasn’t as if the previously undefeated Abramyan, 22, wasn’t trying, for he attacked Ustinov constantly during the fight, but Ustinov’s huge reach, left hook and straight right hand gave him a tremendous amount of problems .
The fight started slowly in the first round as the big bear-like Ustinov used his long jab as a range finder, measuring Abramyan and looking to set him up for his right hand. Ustinov, who fights much like Vitali Klitschko, whom he has sparred with in the past, began to open up with right hands at mind point in the round. Abramyan didn’t seem to mind, though, as he continued pressing forward trying to get into punching range. By the end of the round, Abramyan’s face was turning red from having been hit with several huge right hands from Ustinov.
In the second round, Ustinov began to hold and hit quite often, grabbing Abramyan with his big left hand and holding onto him while tagging him with right uppercuts. Since the referee wasn’t saying anything, Ustinov continued with this practice for the remainder of the bout. Obviously, this is something that will need to be worked on in later fights because eventually Ustinov won’t be able to get away with those kinds of tactics against better fighters, particularly when he gets to the world class level.
Ustinov used his jab frequently in the round, keeping Abramyan bottled up on the outside. On one occasion, Ustinov caught Abramyan with a perfect right hand as he was coming in. The result was a loud crash, which sent Abramyan reeling backwards several steps from the punch. It was perhaps the best punch of the fight for Ustinov, who seemed to have problems with Abramyan’s awkward, all out style of fighting.
Ustinov continued dominating the fight in the 3rd round, while also continuing his holding and hitting, which he seemed very good at. Abramyan did next to nothing in the round, mostly half-heartedly attacking and looking discouraged. It’s hard to blame him, though, because Ustinov’s immense size, looking like a slightly smaller version of Nikolay Valuev, was clearly a huge hurdle for Abramyan to have to deal with.
In the 4th round, Ustinov began to look fatigued, sweating profusely and opening his mouth to take deep breaths a lot of the time. In that, he looked a lot like Vitali Klitachko, who often had the same kinds of stamina problems around the same point in his fights. It didn’t matter, however, because Abramyan still could do little other than throwing wild flurries that mostly hit nothing but air. Generally, when attacked, Ustinov would lean back, making the punches miss and then fire back with short hooks and straight rights. It was a hard style for Abramyan to deal with given the fact that he was giving up four inches in height and 70 lbs in weight to Ustinov.
In rounds five though seven, Ustinov continued pounding away at Abramyan with jabs, hooks and right hands, turning his face a darker red from all the shots. Ustinov seemed mostly disinterested by this point in the fight, seeing that Abramyan was hardly throwing anything of note. Occasionally Abramyan would land something, which would cause Ustinov to fire back with a flurry of big shots, The punches, some of them at least, were the big wind up variety where Ustinov would put everything he had into the shot. It would make a loud sound on impact and it must have been painful for Abramyan, who would usually crawl back into his shell and stay dormant for awhile after.
The 8th round was mostly a slow round with Ustinov content to jab and win the fight without going for the knockout. Both fighters looked tired and the crowd seemed rather bored as well, looking around and conversing rather than watching the fight.
It was a good win for Ustinov, but it also seemed to show that he needs to step it up against better competition. At 31, he doesn’t have a lot of time to waste fighting low quality opposition like Abramyan. Ustinov, though he’s still untested, would be a big problem for any of the top heavyweights in the division because of his excellent boxing skills and his huge size. If he can get busy, he may be a future heavyweight champion.