By Jim Dower: WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (28-0, 25 KO’s) gave Curtis Stevens (25-4, 18 KO’s) a methodical beating on Saturday night in stopping him in an 8th round stoppage at Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York.
The fight was halted by Stevens’ corner after he’d taken an enormous amount of punishment in the 8th round. It was all one-way punishment with Stevens taking huge head and body shots while against the ropes for the entire round.
Golovkin knocked Stevens down with a hard left hook in the 2nd round. Stevens barely made it out of the round, as he was badly hurt when he got up at the count of 7. Golovkin stalked a timid looking Stevens in rounds 3 through 6 in punishing him with head and body shots.
The fight became really one-sided in the 7th, as Golovkin pounded Stevens with big shots for the entire round. Stevens was perched against the ropes for the entire round and took some scary head shots. Stevens would attempt to land an occasional shot, but Golovkin did a good job of avoiding most of his punches. The ones that did leak through didn’t bother Golovkin at all.
By the 8th round, Golovkin seemed like he didn’t care whether he got hit as he stalked a hurt Stevens around the ring hitting him at will.
After the fight, Golovkin said “Sergio Martinez, Peter Quillin, I’m here.”
It’s not likely that either Martinez or Quillin will ever agree to fighting Golovkin. Neither of them have seemed interested at all in fighting him.
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Undefeated Cuban heavyweight Mike Perez (20-0, 12 KO’s) defeated previously unbeaten knockout artist Magomed Abduslamov (18-1, 18 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision. The final judges scores were 97-92, 95-94, and 97-92.
Abduslamov and Perez both traded huge shots in the first three rounds with Abdusalamov getting the better of the action with his harder shots. However, after the 3rd round, Abduslamov started to gas out and Perez, with his high volume punch output, was able to take over the fight with his constant punches. Perez wasn’t a huge puncher by any means, but he just kept throwing shots and they did a lot of damage to Abduslamov’s face over the course of the fight.
Abduslamov’s left side of his face was swollen by the 7th round, as if he might have some kind of internal damage to his cheek. Abduslamov also suffered a cut over his left eye in the 6th round.
Perez had a point deducted in the 9th for throwing a low blow. Abduslamov landed some really shots in the 9th and looked like he was getting back in the fight. However, in the 10th, Perez was able to regain control and outwork a very tired looking Abduslamov.
Perez’s right eye was blackened and he looked pretty beaten up too by the end of the fight. He ate a lot of hard shots from Abduslamov, but he showed a very good chin.
Ola Afolabi (20-3-4, 9 KO’s) defeated Poland’s Lukasz Janik (26-2, 14 KO’s) by a 12 round majority decision on Saturday night to capture the vacant International Boxing Organization (IBO). The final judges scores were 114-114, 117-111, and 115-113.
Afolabi had Janik hurt many times in the fight with body shots and head shots, but he wasn’t able to finish him off due to the constant holding that Janik did in the fight. Janik clinched on average of 10 clinches per round, and he did a good job of getting his shots off and immediately clinching Afolabi before he could get his own shots off in many cases.
The referee warned Janik about his clinching but he never took any points off. The clinching that Janik did in the fight was very similar to the amount of clinching that IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko was doing in his recent win over Alexander Povetkin. Without the constant clinching in every round it’s likely that Janik would have been stopped by the much harder hitting Afolabi.
Janik was cut over both of his eyes in the 2nd half of the fight, but his corner did a good job of controlling the bleeding.
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Other boxing results on the card:
Joel Diaz Jr. UD 6 Bryne Green
Isa Akbarbayev UD 4 Brian Clookey
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