Chilemba stumbles on return
Isaac ‘Golden Boy’ Chilemba’s return to the ring was disastrous as the South Africa-based boxer suffered a unanimous points defeat to Russian Maxim Vlasov in a 12-round World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Global title contest in in Gelendzhik, Russia.
For the Russian it was sweet revenge eight and a half years after Chilemba handed him his first professional career loss as the judges handed him a win with scores 117-110, 116-111 and 116-111.
The fight was the main event of the evening, promoted by the Patriot Boxing in one of Russia’s top resort towns at the Black Sea.
Vlasov, then 19-0 rising super middleweight prospect, first met Chilemba (a 15-1-1, fighting for the first time out of South Africa) on ESPN in February 2011, losing a narrow decision despite putting Chilemba down twice in the eighth round.
On Saturday night, Chilemba did not impress according to Boxingnews.com as he was caught with several stinging blows to the body.
“On this particular night, Vlasov, now 32, was in better shape than Chilemba, a younger 32, who hasn’t fought since losing to Dmitry Bivol for the title almost a year ago. Vlasov, who was fighting for the second time at light heavyweight limit after three plus years as a cruiserweight, looked fresh.
The website reported: “He moved well in the opening round, using his jab and overall workrate to outpunch the Malawian. Chilemba tried to counter Vlasov on his way in and used his trademark defence against the Russia but it didn’t help much.
“Isaac did better at the mid-part of the fight, using stinging blows to the body and frequent jab to keep Vlasov honest and also to slow him down a bit. The Russian was a bit better nevertheless and he landed more, although he couldn’t land cleanly. Chilemba himself started to lose energy after the eighth.”
The bout was also live streamed on youtube and Chilemba could be seen panting as Vlasov increased the tempo in the 11th round.
Chilemba was also docked some points for spitting his mouthpiece a couple of times after several warnings from the referee Yuri Koptsev.
