By Robert Segal: Undefeated junior middleweight prospect Nikita Tszyu (7-0, 6 KOs) had to get up off the deck to come back to stop journeyman Jack Brubaker (17-5-2, 8 KOs) in the sixth round of a scheduled eight round contest on Wednesday evening at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Australia.
The 25-year-old Nakita, the son of former unified light welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu, bludgeoned the red-faced 31-year-old Aussie Brubaker with heavy shots in the sixth, resulting in his corner pulling the plug on the contest by tossing the white towel of surrender into the ring to have bout stopped.
Referee Brad Vocale officially stopped the bout at 2:40 of round six.
Tszyu had a tough time with Brubaker, getting dropped from a right hand by him in round three. Moments later, a wobbly-looking Tszyu was staggered by another hard right hand from Brubaker, and he barely made it out of the round without going down again.
There was quite a bit of swelling on the southpaw Tszyu’s right cheek at the end of the round, and he looked pretty beaten up.
Fortunately for Tszyu, Brubaker grew fatigued and couldn’t fight with the same energy that he had in the third. This allowed Tszyu to pressure Brubaker and land big left hand shots to the head in the fourth & fifth rounds.
In the sixth, Brubaker had nothing left in the gas tank and was defenseless, unable to defend against the rain of hard blows coming from Tszyu. Brubaker’s corner saw that was in distress and wisely threw in the towel to have the carnage.
If they hadn’t made that move, the referee likely would have waved it off because Brubaker was taking a beating in that round and could no longer keep Tszyu off.
On the plus side, Tszyu showed excellent power with his left hand, toughness, and a killer instinct. His power is excellent with his left but not much with his right.
On the negative side, Tszyu’s defense needs work because he was getting hit a lot by Brubaker tonight, and that kind of thing can’t happen if he’s to compete with the top tier fighters at junior middleweight.
The performance from Tszyu tonight showed that he’s got a ways to go before he’ll be ready to take on contenders in the 154-lb division. unlike his famous father Kostya, Nakita Tszyu didn’t have the benefit of a long amateur career to develop his skills. Also, he’d been out of boxing for a while while in school and only returned two years ago at 23.
On the undercard, the big punching super featherweight Liam Wilson (12-2, 7 KOs) returned to his winning ways, defeating Carlos Maria Alanis (12-1, 4 KO) by a ten round unanimous decision.
Wilson knocked Alanis down in the seventh, but couldn’t finish him. The judges scores were 100-89, 100-89, and 98-91.
In Wilson’s previous fight, he’d been knocked out in the ninth round by Emanuel Navarrete last February in a failed effort to capture the vacant WBO 130-lb title.
