By Jim Dower: According to Fight News, the World Boxing Association is going to review last Friday night’s bout between WBA light heavyweight champion Gabriel Campillo (19-3, 6 KO’s) and Beibut Shumenov (9-1, 6 KO’s), a fight which ended with the 26-year-old Shumenov winning by a deeply controversial 12 round split decision at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The outcome of the bout hasn’t been well received by many boxing fans and writers alike, who saw Campillo winning by a significant margin. I saw the fight myself, and felt that Campillo won by at least four to five rounds at the least.
Some of the rounds were close, but due to Campillo having a tired looking Shumenov retreating in reverse for the vast majority of the last six rounds, it appeared to me that Campillo easily should have won the fight. In the 9th round, Campillo hurt Shumenov with a hard combination and then proceeded to land over 20 consecutive head shots without anything coming back in defense from the Kazakhstan fighter.
It’s a minor miracle that referee Jay Nady allowed the fight to continue through this episode because Shumenov looked out on his feet and wasn’t throwing anything back and just taking a great deal of one-way traffic. The final judge’s scores for the fight were as follows: 117-111 and 115-113 for Shumenov and 117-111 for Campillo.
The WBA will review the Shumenov-Campillo fight in the next two weeks and come up with a verdict on the fight. At best, we could be seeing a third fight between the two. However, I kind of doubt it. They have already fought two consecutive times, and I just can’t see them being allowed to fight a third time. Number #1 WBA light heavyweight contender Vyacheslav Uzelkov has been waiting for a shot at the time, and it’s high time that he be allowed to fight the champion.
It’s also highly unlikely that the WBA will reverse the decision. That kind of thing is rarely done, and I don’t expect to happen in this. The most likely scenario is that the winner of the Shumenov-Uzelkov fight will have to face Campillo in their next fight. I suspect it would be Uzelkov would win the Shumenov-Uzelkov fight, because he has excellent power, unlike Shumenov who is only an average puncher, and has good offensive skills.
Shumenov looked like he had no flexibility, and appeared tired after only four or five rounds of the Campillo fight. Offensively, Shumenov isn’t very impressive and his defense was totally lacking against Campillo. He was hit early and often in their fight. Shumenov did look good in the first three rounds against Campillo, throwing a lot of punches and looking as if he was trying for an early knockout.
However, Shumenov quickly seemed to tire and his punches became fewer and fewer as the rounds went by. He also began to get hit with great regularity by Campillo and was in reverse gear for most of the last six rounds.