Lee Defeats Fedotovs; Banks Stops Butlin, Ustinov Beats Sprott – Boxing Results

By Boxing News - 06/21/2009 - Comments

butlin342By William Mackay: Once again, middleweight prospect Andy Lee (18-1, 13 KOs) failed to look impressive, this time in defeating Latvian Olegs Fedotovs (10-6, 6 KOs) by a six round unanimous decision Saturday night on the undercard of the IBF/WBO heavyweight title match between Wladimir Klitschko and challenger Ruslan Chagaev at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

Lee, 25, was hit often by Fedotovs, far too many times for a fighter as hyped as Lee has been in the past couple of years. Lee landed a lot of power shots in the six round bout, but his punches had little effect on Fedotovs until the last round in which Lee was able to drop Fedotovs with a big left hand.

However, Lee wasn’t able to finish him off and had to be content with winning a unanimous decision by the scores of 60-51, 60-53 and 59-55. Lee was cut over his right eye in the 6th round.

With as much scar tissue that Lee has over both eyes, it’s a minor miracle that he was able to last this long without being cut, because Lee has been cut in his past four fights over his eyes from punches.

Lee dominated most of the rounds, but got hit with big shots in every round. What made it so bad was that Lee’s head would whiplash badly with each shot he was hit with, making it look even worse. Lee hasn’t looked like the same fighter since losing a 7th round TKO to Brian Vera last year in March.

Going into that fight, Lee was ranked in the top 15, and thought of as a potential challenger for WBO/WBC Kelly Pavlik. However, Lee took a lot of punishment in the fight with Vera and tired out by the 6th round from the heavy pressure that Vera was putting on him. Since that fight, Lee has beaten Willie Gibbs and Alexander Sipos, and taken a lot of punishment in both of those bouts.

In other action on the card, cruiserweight contender Johnathon Banks (21-1, 15 KOs) stopped journeyman heavyweight Paul Butlin (12-10, 3 KOs) in the 7th round of a scheduled eight round bout. Banks, 26, coming off a disappointing 8th round TKO to Tomasz Adamek in February 2009, moved up to heavyweight to take this fight.

Banks hurt Butlin, 33, with a big right hand in the 7th, and then followed it with a chopping right hand to drop Butlin to the canvas. Butlin got to his feet at the count of eight, but the referee stopped the bout after seeing that Butlin was too hurt to continue.

Banks dropped Butlin at the end of the 1st round with a big right hand. Earlier in the round, Butlin nailed Banks with a big right hand that had Banks holding on for several moments. Following the 1st, Banks fought mostly on the outside, circling the ring continuously and flicking out a jab.

The extra weight that Banks put on for this fight appeared to be fat and he looked much slower than he had in the past. For his sake, hopefully Banks doesn’t decide to stay at heavyweight because he doesn’t have the speed or the size at 6’3” to compete against giants like the Klitschko brothers.

British journeyman heavyweight Michael Sprott (31-14, 16 KOs) was defeated by unbeaten heavyweight contender Alexander Ustinov (16-0, 14 KOs) by a 10 round decision. Sprott, 6’1”, had major difficulties solving the huge reach of the 6’7” 300 pound Ustinov and only rarely was able to get close enough to land anything of substance.

Ustinov, 32, a heavyweight that fights for K2 East Promotions, the company owned by the Klitschko brothers, used his jab, short left hook and right hands to pound Sprott round after round. Ustinov’s speed was bad as was his stamina.

However, with his huge size and reach he didn’t have to do much to dominate the much smaller Sprott. Ustinov appeared to hurt Sprott with a big thudding right hand in the 10th, but failed to finish him. In the end, Sprott was much too short to compete with Ustinov.



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