Nadirbegov stops Toygonbayev in war!

By Alexey Sukachev at ringside, May, 31, 2006

Fists were flying and girls were crying today in Forum Hall, Moscow, as 28-years-old Russian light middleweight champion Alisultan Nadirbegov sensationally knocked out former perennial contender Kuvanich Toygonbayev in eleventh round to win, what was the fight of the year in Russian professional boxing to date, and to capture WBO Asia Pacific light middleweight belt.

Toygonbayev, 30, from Andizhan, Uzbekistan, now fighting in Russia is a well-known road warrior who once was a legitimate junior middleweight contender with the wins over such guys as Andrei Pestriaev, Oba Carr, Ronald Weaver and Andrei Tsurkan. His only losses were by points to former world champions Kassim Ouma and Keith Holmes (via majority decision) and slick Canadian spoiler Ian Gardner (via split decision). Nevertheless, Uzbekistani was on his comeback road after two 2004-year defeats and 19 months of absence in ring.

Nadirbegov, fighting for Togliatti, Russia, by the way of Dagestan is 3 years pro with the victories over Akhmed Oligov and Andrei Pestriaev. He was coming 14-1-0 into the bout with the recent loss, occurred in fight with Ivan Gontsa this March. The fight between Nadirbegov and Toygonbayev was the main event of the boxing evening, promoted by famous Russian sports agent Nikolay Grammatikov with the WBO Asia Pacific belt at stakes.

The first round was pretty quiet with both boxers trying to find their tactics for this fight. In round two Toygonbayev was much busier landing several powerful lefts which caused a nasty cut over right Nadirbegov’s eye. In round 3 Uzbekistani was once again in control of the battle, having won almost all exchanges. It even seemed sometimes that the end of the fight was just over the hill, but it was Alisultan, bleeding and may be broken, who had sensationally caught Kuvanich with the destructive, but short right hook and had floored him just before the bell rang. In three following rounds there was an exciting toe-to-toe massacre with Alisultan, working as a counterpuncher, while “Kuna” was showing an enormous aggressiveness but usually without proper effect. However, in later rounds Uzbekistani was able to regain equilibrium and even to earn a narrow handicap over Nadirbegov. The bout tended towards a tough decision win for experienced Toygonbayev, when suddenly, 1:30 to go in eleventh part of the action, Nadirbegov rocked his opponent with the right swing and finished him with the short left hook to the head. Toygonbayev was able to get his body up, however that was too late, as referee Roman Petrov decided to stop the contest, perhaps, a little bit prematurely. Fightnews.com scored this bout as a slight advantage for Toygonbayev – 96-95 – at the time of stoppage.

With the win Nadirbegov captured vacant WBO Asian Pacific title and improved his record to: 15-1-0, 7 KOs. On the other hand, Toygonbayev’s record have been dropped to 24-4-0 with 16 KOs, and it seems clear now, that Kuvanich is on the starting point for him to retire for good, as it was his first loss inside the distance in10 years as a pro.

UNDERCARD

Sergey Sorokin (22-1-1, 17 KOs), 27, from Ekaterinburg, Russia, easily continued his KO streak with the 5th round knockout victory over 33-years old Chilean journeyman Joel Sebastjan Mayo (35-8-0, 24 Kos). Sorokin, who had arranged 6 TKO wins since dropping 6-round decision to Juan Urango June, 2004, was in control of the things, occurring throughout the whole fight. In round four he dropped Mayo with the short right and in round five rocked him once again to cause Chilean’s camp to stop the punishment.

Rising Russian 20-years old heavyweight Andrei Fedosov (10-1-0, 7 KOs) from Saint-Petersburg easily dismantled awkward Kazakhstani spoiler Talgat Dosanov (10-2-1, 5 KOs) in fourth round of the action. That was Talgat’s first outing in two years, and he seemed to be out of shape. There were no knockdowns, but the fight has been finally stopped after the end of the fourth round due to Talgat’s corner request.

Other results:

Alexander Filichkin (2-0-0, 0 KOs) UD4 Islam Yusupov (1-3-0, 0 KOs)

Ibragim Khalilov (2-0-0. 1 KO) UD4 Alexey Kushchenko (0-1-0)

Timur Shailezov (1-0-0, 0 KO) MD4 Takhir Ibragimov (2-8-0, 0 KO)