By Jim Dower: Making his 4th defense of his IBF cruiserweight title Yoan Pablo Hernandez (29-1, 14 KOs) defeated a tougher than expected Firat Arslan (34-8-2, 21 KOs) by a 12 round split decision in a fight that looked closer to be a draw than a win for Hernandez on Saturday night at the Messehalle in Erfurt, Germany.

Arslan continually plodded forward for the first 8 rounds in forcing the 29-year-old Hernandez to throw a lot more punches than he wanted to. Hernandez’s German trainer had him throwing lighter shots in order to keep from getting tired, but Hernandez frequently put all he had into his shots.

The judges scored the fight 115-113 for Arslan, 115-113 and 116-113 for Hernandez. The 116-113 score was a little off. The fight was a lot closer than that.

Arslan suffered an ear injury in the 9th round. Following that, he stopped fighting on the inside and stayed at a distance for the last three rounds.

#13 IBF Arslan was quite fortunate to get this title shot given that he came into the fight having lost 2 out of his last 4 fights. However, he’s in the same promotional stable as Hernandez and that’s pretty much the main reason he got the fight. The loss for Arslan will likely knock him out of the top 15 temporarily, and take off the market for world title shots until he can at least get back to No.15.

In other action on the card, #9 WBO super middleweight contender Tyron Zeuge (15-0, 9 KOs) defeated Baker Barakat (40-17-4, 27 KOs) by a 9th round stoppage to capture the vacant IBF International super middleweight title. Zeuge knocked Barakat down in the 1st. The fight continued to be one-sided with Zeuge hitting Barakat at will until the mismatch was stopped in the 9th.

Barakat was stopped in the 2nd round by George Groves and Dimitri Sartison in 2013. The fact that Zeuge had to go 9 rounds to take out Barakat tells you all you need to know about his limited talent.

Other boxing action on tonight’s card:

Noel Gevor W8 Ismail Abdoul
Stefan Haertel W6 Olegs Fedotovs
Dennis Ceylan D6 Cristian Montilla
Abel Gevor W6 Attila Palko