By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated heavyweight contender Alexander Dimitrenko (29-0, 19 KOs) stopped Luan Krasniqi (30-4-1, 14 KOs) in the 3rd round of a scheduled 12-round bout for the World Boxing Organization Inter-Continental heavyweight title at the Burg-Waechter Castello, in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
After doing fairly well in rounds one and two, the end came suddenly for the 37 year-old Krasniqi in the third round when Dimitrenko landed a right to the head and a powerful left hook to the midsection of Krasniqi, sending him to the canvas in pain.
Krasniqi attempted to get up from the knockdown but was only able to get to his crouching position and was subsequently counted out at 2:54 of the 3rd round by referee Manuel Oliver Palomo.
Dimitrenko, 26, ranked #1 in the World Boxing Organization (WBO), #3 in the WBA, WBC and IBF ranking organizations, started off well in the first round, throwing hard jabs and left hooks to the midsection of Krasniqi. Although Krasniqi landed a few right hands in the round, most of the damage was done by Dimitrenko with the use of his hard jabs and right hands.
He used his 6’7″ height and reach advantage over Krasniqi well in the round, staying mostly on the outside and preventing Krasniqi from landing as much as he’d like to have. The crowd was one hundred percent behind Krasniqi, cheering loudly for everything that he did, even many of his missed punches. However, in reality, Krasniqi had a poor round and didn’t do nearly enough to win it as far as I’m concerned.
In the second round, Krasniqi fought much better, immediately coming out fast and landing several hard right hands in the opening moments of the round. He continued to fight well for the duration of the round, landing rights to the head of Dimitrenko and feeding off the loud crowd applause after every punch.
However, whereas Krasniqi seemed to be going all out with his offense, and clearly tiring himself out, Dimitrenko seemed very relaxed, as if he were just getting started in the fight. He smiled often in the round, as if he were sparring rather than fighting someone who was trying to take his head off with every punch and looked totally unconcerned with what Krasniqi was throwing at him.
Despite losing the round, Dimitrenko finished strong, firing a hard right hand and two strong jabs in the waning seconds of the round. In the 3rd round, Dimitrenko came out firing jabs on the outside. It looked as if his trainer, Fritz Sdunek, had given him some advise in between rounds to stay on the outside and use his height and reach advantage more.
It worked, as Dimitrenko controlled Krasniqi easily in the round, hitting him again and again with hard jabs to the head and keeping Krasniqi’s punch output to the single digits. Dimitrenko then began circling the ring, stopping occasionally to throw nice uppercuts and right hands.
Krasniqi desperately ran forward and landed several right hands but the punches had little effect on Dimitrenko, who wasn’t fazed in the least. Shortly after getting hit with a powerful right hand from Krasniqi, Dimitrenko fired back a right hand to the head and then followed it with a left to the body that dropped Krasniqi in a delayed reaction to the canvas.
Krasniqi lay on the canvas for several moments holding onto his left side and grimacing in visible pain. He tried to get up, but was only able to get to a crouching position before the referee Manuel Oliver Palomo counted him out.
With this win, Dimitrenko puts himself in striking distance for title shots against all of the current heavyweights – Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko and Nikolay Valuev. With his huge 6’7” height and superb athletic skills, Dimitrenko would be a difficult opponent for any of them to have to deal with.
Comments are closed.