By Sam Gregory: In the main event of the July 23rd edition of ESPN2 Friday Night Fights from the Tachi Palace Casino, Lemoore, Calif. Vyacheslav Uzelkov 22-0 with 14 KO’s defended his unbeaten record along with his WBA light heavyweight title against Beibut Shumenov 9-1 with 6 KO’s in a scheduled 12 round bout in the light heavyweight division.

Both men looked to be very evenly matched in the opening round of the fight trading jabs early on feeling out their opponent. Right before the closing bell of round one Uzelkov landed a solid left hook to the head that sent Shumenov to the canvas scoring the first knockdown of the fight.

Shumenov had a good second round appearing to redeem himself from a less than stellar first round. The third round was another good round for Shumenov, seconds before the closing bell he scored a knockdown over Uzelkov to even the score.

In the fourth and fifth rounds Shumenov was very aggressive landing solid uppercuts and pushing forward with three punch combinations. During the fifth and sixth rounds Uzelkov seemed to be waiting for the opportunity to land a big punch. Even though Uzelkov appeared to have more power on his punches waiting to counter his opponent didn’t pay off causing rounds to slip away from the undefeated champ.

By the seventh round time appeared to be running out for Uzelkov, Shumenov continued to work inside landing solid body punches that was winning him rounds.

The eighth and ninth rounds were all Shumenov as he continued to score big totally dominating each round.

After the ninth round the unofficial scorecard had Shumenov winning every round except the second

The championship rounds appeared to give Shumenov a second wind, he came out in the eleventh round with even more aggression than the previous ten rounds. Shumenov seemed to pick up even more steam in the twelfth and final round.

After the 12th and final round the fight went to the judge’s scorecards: 117-109, 118-108 and 118-108 all for the winner by unanimous decision Beibut Shumenov.

Shumenov improves his record to 10-1 with 6 KO’s while Uzelkov suffered his first defeat and falls to 22-1 with 14 KO’s.