By Eric Thomas: Making his first defense of his World Boxing Association light heavyweight title, champion Beibut Shumenov (10-1, 6 KO’s) defeated his previously unbeaten number #1 contender Viacheslav Uzelkov (22-1, 14 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino, in Lemoore, California. The final judges’ sccores were 117-109, 118-108 and 118-108.

Shumenov, a former 2004 Olympian for Kazakhstan, had looked positively awful in his last two fights against Gabriel Campillo. Shumenov lost his first fight against Campillo and then won a controversial 12 round split decision in the rematch early this year in January.

Tonight, Shumenov pretty well dominated the Ukrainian Uzelkov, outworking him through the 12 rounds and not showing the same stamina problems that had plagued Shumenov in his two fights against Campillo. Shumenov still looked far from impressive, as he still looked too tired for a fighter as young as he is at 26.

Shumenov also looked robotic, as if he had no flexibility in his body at all. It was like watching a weightlifter fight, because Shumenov just seems really, really tight all the time. It’s hard to imagine Shumenov holding into the WBA title for long. He’s just not that good.

Of the current four light heavyweight champions, I see him as by far the weakest of the lot. And I also think there’s a high number of contenders that can and will beat him if given the chance, such as Nathan Cleverly, Zsolt Erdei, Glen Johnson, Karo Murat, Hugo Hernan Garay, Adrian Diaconu and Ismayl Sillakh.

What Shumenov lacks is basic flexibility and speed for his upperbody. it’s pretty shocking how tight the guy is when he fights. Luckily for Shumenov, Uzelkov came into the fight having only been past the 8th round once during his entire career.

By the 2nd half of tonight’s fight, Uzelkov was totally exhausted and unable to throw more than one punch at a time. He just looked like a fighter that didn’t know what to do when Shumenov didn’t just fall over like most of his other opponents had done.

Uzelkov knocked Shumenov to the canvas early in the 1st round with a nice left hook. Shumenov returned the favor in the 3rd round. Shumenov then went on to easily control the rest of the fight. Neither fighter looked good at all tonight. Shumenov is going to have problems once he faces a real threat, and I suspect his 15 minutes of fame will be over.