By Jason Kim: WBA light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov (11-0, 7 KO’s) stopped 40-year-old former WBA middleweight champion William Joppy (39-7-2, 30 KO’s) by a 6th round stoppage on Saturday at the Ice Mansion, in Schymkent, Kazakhstan. Shumenov, 27, put away Joppy with a right hand to the head in the 6th that caused him to take a knee and get counted out. However, both fighters looked terrible throughout.

Shumenov had what amounted to being a small punching bag in Joppy, as he was able to land at will through the entire fight and fight at a slow, leisurely pace. It was like watching someone spar, but worse because of how slow it looked. Shumenov doesn’t have much hand speed and in watching him fight, it’s like viewing a slow heavyweight.

If Joppy had more youth and size, I think he would won this fight. As it is, he was able to hit Shumenov cleanly with punches almost every time he threw a punch. Shumenov seemed incapable of blocking anything with his gloves. He was forced to block shots with his head and it looked ugly. Shumenov showed no head movement and just seemed clueless about how to go about blocking shots.

The only way Shumenov could get out of the way of Joppy’s shots was to back away. He did this often but would get tagged when he would come forward. Shumenov was lucky that Joppy didn’t throw a lot of punches because this could have gone really badly for him had Joppy had anything left in the tank. Joppy was a last second replacement for WBO light heavyweight champion Jurgen Braehmer, who pulled out of the fight the week of the fight due to a gastrointestinal problem.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that Braehmer pulled out of the fight because as bad as Shumenov looked, I could see Braehmer beating him. In the 5th round, Joppy started hanging on the ropes and looking to counter. It was a stupid thing to do because it made him even more vulnerable to the slow moving Shumenov. In the 6th, Joppy again backed up to the ropes and was met with a series of hard punches that ended with a right hand that caused Joppy to take a knee and be counted out.