South Africa-based Malawian boxer Isaac ‘Golden Boy’ Chilembaon Saturday earned a draw in a 10-round bout against highly rated World Boxing Association (WBA) Gold super middleweight champion Fedor Chudinov in Moscow, Russia.
Chilemba (26-7-3, 10 Kos), 32, was impressive throughout the bout.
It was unfortunate that the judges scored it a draw as Chilemba appeared to have an upper hand, according to Boxingscene.com.
He kept the marauding 33-year-old Russian at bay with his jabs and he also peppered Chudinov’s defence with fast multi-punch combinations and earned praise from Boxingscene.com which described him as having been better at landing body punches during.
“There were no knockdowns. Neither fighter was seriously hurt. There were no sudden twists in the flow of the fight just an intense, high-octane action for 10 very close rounds. Both fighters produced their trademark performances. Chudinov was stalking his opponent, gloves tightly covering his chin, opening his head for upper punches.
“Chudinov—despite showing some hints of technical improvement under the guidance of coach Vitaliy Slanov—was moving forward almost without any jab, relying almost solely on his power punches. He used uppercuts on the inside but hunted mostly for Chilemba’s head rather than his body,” Boxingscene.com summarised the fight.
However, Chilemba’s punches lacked power, probably owing to the fact that he had to lose weight from light heavyweight to super middleweight to face Chudiniov (23-2-1, 16 KOs).
The three judges were divided in their opinion, scoring the boxers 97-93, 95-95 and 94-97, a three-way draw.
Chilemba was quoted as having said he felt he did enough to win the fight, but was not bitter with the judges’ decision.
The fight, which marked Chilemba’s return since December 2019 when he scored a decision over Alexander Kubich, was streamed live on Ren TV, a Russian free-to-air television network.
The draw was a setback in in three and a half years for the Russian who was unbeaten in eight bouts since he last stoppage loss in 2017.
The bout was organised by famous Russian promoter Vladimir Hryunov in conjuction with the Ren TV Channel, which aired the fight live.
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