(Photo Credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Jim Dower: In a tougher than expected fight, former WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs) showed his age tonight in having to get up off the deck in the 1st round to comeback to defeat high level journeyman Derric Rossy (30-11, 14 KOs) by a close 10 round unanimous decision at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The final judges’ scores were 96-93, 96-93 and 95-94. Stiverne, 37, was fighting for the first time in 10 months since losing his WBC heavyweight title to Deontay Wilder last January. Stiverne looked both rusty and out of shape, as he weighed in at 254lbs on Friday’s weigh-in. That’s 15 pounds heavier than he was for his fight against Wilder.
In the 1st round, Stiverne walked into a hard right hand from the 6’3” Rossy and was deposited on the canvas. To Stiverne’s credit, he was able to get back up and battle back to win the decision based on his harder shots, but it was still a close fight and not a good performance from Stiverne. He took a lot of heavy shots in the fight and was very fortunate that he wasn’t fighting a better opponent than Rossy tonight, because he would have lost again.
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In other boxing action on the card, unbeaten light middleweight Jarrett Hurd (17-0, 11 KOs) stayed undefeated with a 6th round stoppage win over Frank Galarza (17-1-2, 11 KOs). Galarza was down in the 4th. The fight was halted at 0:59 of the 6th after Galarza had taken some big shots that caused him to turn around.
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Undefeated #9 IBF Russian middleweight Sergiy Derevyanchenko (7-0, 5 KOs) defeated journeyman Jesse Nicklow (25-8-3, 8 KOs) 3rd round TKO. The fight took place at 168. Derevyanchenko, who fought in the 2008 Olympics for Russia, was hitting Nicklow at will in the 3rd round when the fight was halted by referee Jay Nady at 2:18 of the round. The 30-year-old Derevyanchenko looked good, but he needs to step it up against better competition. He’s up there in age at 30, and can’t afford to spend too much time fighting journeyman level opposition like this.
In other action, undefeated light heavyweight knockout artist David Benavidez (11-0, 10 KOs) defeated Felipe Romero (15-10-1, 9 KOs) by a 1st round knockout. Romero was on the canvas htree times before the mismatch was finally halted at 2:00 of the round.
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