By Jim Dower: Undefeated cruiserweight contender Lateef Kayode (17-0, 14 KO’s) easily defeated Matt Godfrey (20-3, 14 KO’s) by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision on Friday night to capture the vacant NABA cruiserweight title at the Chumash Casino, in Santa Ynez, California. Looking powerful but stiff and more than a little robotic, Kayode knocked Godfrey down three separate times in winning by the judges’ scores of 98-90, 97-90, 98-89.

Kayode, ranked #4 WBO, #3 WBA, #8 IBF, and #4 WBC, showed excellent power in taking the fight to the weaker Godfrey and knocking him down with big right hands to the head in the 1st and 5th, and left to the body in the 9th. Godfrey just looked much too weak to be competitive in this fight. Had he a little more power he might have been able to pound out a decision because Kayode is so basic and slow. I wasn’t at all impressed with this guy. He may win a title at some point but I don’t see him in the same class as guys like Marco Huck and Denis Lebedev.

In other action on the card, super bantamweight Chris Avalos (19-1, 15 KO’s) defeated Russian Khabir Suleymanov (11-1, 5 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision in a terribly sloppy fight. The final judges’ scores were 95-92, 96-91, and 97-90. Avalos dropped Suleymanov in the opening round but the rest of the fight Avalos looked pretty mediocre. Suleymanov looked even worse. I can’t see either of these guys winning titles. It was a mess of a fight and it’s too bad it wasn’t a shorter fight it would have been good to have had a knockout conclusion for this one.

Art Hovhannesyan TKO 6 Archie Ray Marquez