By Erik Schmidt: In a fight marred with fouls between both fighters, once beaten cruiserweight contender Russian Grigory Drozd (32-1, 24 KO’s) stopped Darnell Wilson (23-9-3, 20 KO’s) in the 10th round on Thursday night at the Sport Complex Krylatskoe, in Moscow, Russia. The bout was stopped moments after the 10th by referee Viktor Panin due to injuries that Wilson had sustained in the fight to his right eye, which was nearly closed.
Wilson, 34, was also bleeding from the mouth and wasn’t competitive with Drozd. The fight was largely one-sided from the very beginning in the fight, as Wilson didn’t have the boxing ability to test Drozd. Although Wilson tried to come up with a big knockout punch, he missed most of the time.
By the 5th round, Wilson was exhausted and spend the next five rounds clinching constantly and throwing rabbit punches in the clinch. In rounds eight, nine and ten, Wilson had one point deducted for throwing rabbit shots in a clinch.
The punches weren’t thrown with any kind of power, but the referee wasn’t about to let it go in this case. Wilson seemed unable to control himself from throwing the rabbit shots, because even after being warned and deducted points multiple times by the referee, Wilson persisted in throwing them.
Once the referee started deducting points, he kind of went a little overboard and started taking points away every round. Even Drozd was penalized in the 10th after clinching Wilson one time too many. I hadn’t seen Drozd warned about holding from the referee prior to this, which made it seem odd that the referee decided to take points away from Drozd.
Luckily, in the end it really didn’t matter how many points that the referee took from both fighters, because Drozd totally dominated the slow and tired Wilson and easily won every round until the fight was stopped after the 10th.
In rounds one through four, Drozd moved around the ring landing nice combinations and jabs to the head of Wilson. Many of the shots landed clean without a jab coming before them. Wilson seemed incapable of blocking any punches and was getting hit again and again flush, and reacting too slow to Drozd’s attacks.
Wilson was throwing very few punches and the ones that he would attempt, wild hooks, often missed by a mile leaving Wilson off balance and prone to getting countered by Drozd. In rounds five though eight, Drozd hit Wilson at will with shots without having to worry about being hit in return.
Wilson just wasn’t throwing any punches and was mainly trying to clinch a lot of the few that he did attempt. In the 6th round, a frustrated Wilson was warned repeatedly by the referee for throwing rabbit punches while in a clinch.
Regardless of how many times Wilson was warned, he would keep throwing the punches to the back of Drozd’s head while in a clinch. In the 7th, both fighters started looking really tired and the action got sloppy and hard to watch. The two fighters clinched constantly in the 8th round, and Wilson had a point deducted for throwing rabbit punches.
He had been warned moments before about throwing the punches, but it didn’t seem to sink in. Wilson’s right eye began to show signs of swelling in this round from the many jabs and combinations that Drozd was raining down on Wilson.
Early in the 9th, Wilson landed four rabbit punches and was deducted a point by the referee. There was very little action in the round because both fighters were constantly clinching and looking tired. At the start of the 10th, Wilson landed three rabbit punches, but instead of him being penalized, Drozd had a point taken away for excessive holding.
The referee seemed to be really getting into his job and looked to be going a little overboard with his constant warnings and point deductions. Following this, Wilson landed three rabbit punches and had another point taken away.
The remainder of the round was mostly clinching and wrestling with few punches landed. Immediately after the round ended, the referee stopped the bout. At the time of the stoppage, Wilson was bleeding from his mouth and his right eye was almost closed.