By Erik Schmidt: EBU (European) featherweight champion Oleg Yefimovych (15-1, 10 KOs) stopped Luca Maggio (7-4, 1 KOs) by an impressive 1st round TKO on Saturday night at the Sportpalace Drusba, in Donetsk, Ukraine. Yefimovych, 26, dropped Maggio with a left hook to the head. Later in the round, Yefimovych gain hurt Maggio, knocking him down for the second time in the round with a big left hook to the head. After Maggio got up, Yefimovych finished him off with two left hooks to the body, at which point referee Mickey Vann moved in and stopped the fight at 2:43 of the round.
Yefimovych, ranked #4 in the World Boxing Organization, #11 in the WBC and #14 in the WBA featherweight division, looked dominant in the opening stages of the fight, pounding the 32-year-old Italian Maggio with left hooks to the body and head. Seconds into the fight, Yefimovych staggered Maggio with a hard left hook to the head.
Yefimovych then followed with a series of left hooks ending with two left hooks to the head that sent Maggio down to the canvas. He immediately got up and received a standing eight count from Mickey Vann. Now over eager for a knockout, Yefimovych once again staggered him with a left hook to the head but then shoved him roughly to the canvas.
Referee then took Yefimovych to the corner and gave him a brief warning for the roughhouse tactics. After the action resumed, Yefimovych resumed landing big left hooks and hard jabs to the head of Maggio. For his part, Maggio was unable to get any punches in on his own and was mostly just trying to survive against the quicker Yefimovych.
Shortly after that, Yefimovych nailed Maggio with another big left hook that rocked him. Yefimovych followed up with a left-right combination and then another big left hook that sent Maggio down to the canvas.
Once again, Maggio got up and received a standing eight count from the referee. As soon as the action resumed, Yefimovych rushed forward and landed two hard body shots sending Maggio to the ropes. At that point, referee Mickey Vann had seen enough and moved in and halted the fight at 2:54 of the round.
It was a good win for Yefimovych but let’s be clear, this was an opponent who was badly over-matched against the top ranked Yefimovych. Although he’s only had 16 fights himself, it’s time that Yefimovych starts being matched against tougher opposition, someone like Jason Litzau, Billy Dibb or Derry Matthews. I see him beating all of them quite handy.
In other action on the card, lightweight Andrei Kudriavtsev (30-6, 12 KOs) defeated journeyman Frederic Bonifai (34-34-4, 12 KOs) by an 8-round unanimous decision. Using combinations and movement, Kudriavtsev easily controlled the action with the 39-year-old Bonifai, hitting from the distance with long right hands and jabs.
In most of the rounds, Bonifai was too slow to catch up with Kudriavtsev, and on the rare times that he did, Kudriavtsev was able to get the better of him with fast combinations to the head.