By Scott Gilfoid: The talented 27-year-old light heavyweight contender Ismayl Sillakh (17-1, 14 KO’s) may have been stopped in the 8th round by Russian Denis Grachev (12-0-1, 8 KO’s) last Friday night, but this is merely a small setback for Sillakh and it in now way deter him from continuing to press forward to pick up one of the world titles at 175lbs.

This is just a blip in the road for Sillakh, because he’s not going to be stopped in his move forward, and he’s going to be getting a world title shot soon regardless of his loss to Grachev.

The defeat to Grachev was one of those freak things where Sillakh, who reminds me a lot of a younger, smaller Wladimir Klitschko, got carried away by trying to score a knockout in the 8th after stunning Grachev with a hard left hook that had Grachev staggering slightly. Sillakh should have kept his distance and elected to continue boxing Grachev, but instead he went after him trying to stop him.

This allowed Grachev to land a short powerful right hand that badly hurt Sillakh, causing him to back up into the corner and cover up. Grachev then unloaded everything but the kitchen sink on Sillakh until he got the knockdown. The fight was then halted at that point. But this was a training issue more than anything. Sillakh should have been holding onto Grachev in a clinch after getting hurt instead of looking to just cover up with a hit me sign basically pasted on him.

Sillakh is the best fighter in the light heavyweight division from what I can see. The only fighter that comes close is Chad Dawson, but he doesn’t have the defense or the offensive skills that Sillakh. There’s nothing in Dawson’s game that is even close to being as good as Sillakh.

The Ukrainian born Sillakh is destined to be a champion, and this loss was a good learning tool for him because he now knows what he needs to do to make sure that this doesn’t happen again in the future. I don’t see Sillakh ever getting stopped again. This was the first and the last.