By Mark Eisner: Former WBA cruiserweight champion Yunier ‘The KO Doctor’ Dorticos (24-1, 22 KOs) knocked out the previously unbeaten Andrew Tabiti (17-1, 13 KOs) in the 10th round to win the vacant IBF cruiserweight title on Saturday night in the WBSS semifinal at the Arena Riga in Latvia.
Dorticos, 33, landed a huge right hand to the head of Tabiiti that knocked him out in the 10th round. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:33 of round 10. The shot had Tabiti down on his back looking badly hurt. The referee wasn’t going to wait around and give a count to the badly hurt Tabiti, so the fight was halted at the moment.
Tabiti had thrown a right hand at the exact same time that Dorticos threw his own right hand. Dorticos’ shot go there first, and he dropped Tabiti hard on the canvas. There would be no coming from that kind of a punch.
With the win, Dorticos moves to the final of the World Boxing Super Series tournament later this year to face the winner of the Mairis Briedis vs. Krzysztof Glowacki.
Andrew Tabiti was fighting to survive
Tabiti had been doing a lot of holding the entire fight. He lost a point for holding in the fifth round. In the sixth, a clash of heads caused a cut over the right eye of Dorticos. That cut was caused with Tabiti looking to hold, and the two fighter’s heads came to together.
It’s disappointing obviously that the 29-year-old Tabiti didn’t do more with his chance to try and fight. He was moving around the ring, tying up Dorticos at every opportunity and not doing anything to try and and win the fight. Tabiti looked frightened of Dorticos. It appears that Tabiti’s game plan was to try and tire the talented Cuban Dorticos out by clinching constantly in the first three quarters of the fight, and then go after him in the last part of the contest when he faded. Dorticos had gassed out in his quarterfinal fight in the World Boxing Super Series against Mateusz Masternak last October
In rounds 9 and 10, Tabiti started throwing more shots, but he was still doing a lot of holding and moving around the ring. Dorticos was tired, but he was focusing more on landing the perfect right hands in those two rounds. Tabiti was hitting Dorticos more, but he was getting nailed with punches that were doing damage.