The winner
National Box Promotion’s star Yurii Nuzhnenko has defended his WBA Intercontinental Champion’s title in the second middleweight division for the second time, defeating Uzbekistan’s Farkhad Bakirov. The bout took place at the Kyiv Sports Palace as part of the Double Strike tournament. The Ukrainian boxer, who sustained significant bruising during the fight, was announced the winner by the jury’s unanimous decision.
During the bout Bakirov constantly broke the rules, hitting with his elbows and head, and using wrestling holds. This led the Spanish referee to strip him of two points. The bout passed in a very strained atmosphere; during the fourth round Nuzhnenko got a cut to his eyebrow. With his face covered in blood, it seemed as though the Ukrainian boxer wouldn’t make it, but he kept up the attack, throwing painful punches. By the end of the match Bakirov’s shorts were scarlet with Yurii’s blood.
Kostia Tszyu, the legendary boxer and all-round world champion, attended the competition as a guest of honor and handed Nuzhnenko his Individual Cup as the top boxer.
Among the other contenders Viacheslav Uzielkov of Ukraine won the vacant title of Eastern Europe Champion in the light heavyweight division after knocking out Russian boxer Artem Vychkin. “I paid serious attention to my training because this was going to be my first title bout, and there was a lot of responsibility riding on me. But already after the sixth round I felt that I would win,” Uzielkov said after the fight.
Another Ukrainian boxer, Oleksii Mazykin, had no problem beating the American boxer Sedrick Fields, and the jury unanimously proclaiming him the winner. After the bout Mazykin said that he had had a tough opponent, although he wasn’t in the best shape. He announced that he would like to fight Russian boxer Aleksandr Povetkin, with whom he has unfinished business from their amateur boxing days. Fields told journalists that fighting the Ukrainian was hard because his opponent was on home turf. He added that he was proud of Oleksii, who pursued a classical type of combat, and his jabs gave him a lot of problems. Fields added that he will be coming back. Why? “Because I love Ukraine!”
That night Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Kabanov made his prizefighting debut in the super heavyweight division, knocking out his Belarusian opponent in the first round. “I wasn’t nervous before the bout. I felt great, especially when it came time to enter the ring. I hope to have another fight in about two or three months,” Kabanov said.
Tszyu congratulated Nuzhnenko after the match, but the Russian boxer left the arena in a bad mood, explaining that he was disappointed with the unprofessional way the press conference was organized: “He won that bout. It was his press conference. I am a professional. Whatever I have done during my lifetime has been done professionally. Here every arrangement was made unprofessionally. That’s why I’m leaving. Thanks a lot for everything. You have a winner, there he is,” was Tszyu’s parting statement.
