By Jim Dower: The hard hitting Fedor Chudinov (12-0, 10 KOs) stayed unbeaten on Thursday night in defeating Australian fighter Ben McCulloch (14-1, 11 KOs) by a 2nd round knockout to give him his first defeat of his career in winning the interim World Boxing Association super middleweight title at the Dynamo Palace of Sports in Krylatskoye, Moscow, Russia.

Chudinov, 27, absolutely flattened the 32-year-old McCulloch with a right to the head in the 2nd round, and there would be no getting up from that shot.

With this win, Chudinov now joins Carl Froch and Andre Ward as the WBA champions. As good as Chudinov is, he’s got a long, long ways to go before he’s considered to be in the same class as either of those fighters. The WBA isn’t helping matters with them having three champions in the super middleweight division.

They’ve watered down the division with their multiple champions in the same weight class. It makes things confusing for the fans to see all the champions, and it arguably cheapens the title by having so many fighters sharing the belt.

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In heavyweight action, Alexander Ustinov (30-1, 21 KOs) emerged from a 13 month layoff to defeat the game Chauncy Welliver (55-10-5, 22 KOs) by an 8 round unanimous decision. Ustinov, looking slim and in shape, knocked Welliver down in the 5th round. Ustinov, 6’8”, did a good job of controlling Welliver with his jab and spearing left hooks and right hands in this one-sided fight.

Ustinov needs to be a little more active with his career if he wants to get a crack at one of the world titles. He can’t afford to sit out of action for over a year at a time at his age. Ustinov is 38-years-old and his clock is ticking. If he wants to get a world title shot, he’s going to need to fight more frequently against better opposition.