Nikolai Valuev Clobbers Monte Barrett

Nikolai Valuev stops Monte Barrett with 11th round TKO

Nikolai Valuev (45-0, 35 KOs) successfully defended his WBA heavyweight title Saturday night with an eleventh round stoppage of Monte Barrett (31-5, 17 KOs).

Barrett performed above expectations, especially in the first half of the fight, and Valuev, despite the TKO victory, performed somewhat below. Valuev dropped Barrett in the eighth round and twice in the eleventh. Barrett’s cornerman jumped into the ring and stopped the slaughter at 2:12.

In the co-main event, unbeaten WBC light heavyweight champion Tomasz Adamek (31-0, 20 KOs) won a majority decision against Paul Briggs (25-3, 18 KOs) in a brawl on a par with the first war they fought. Briggs put Adamek to the canvas in round one and busted up the champ pretty good over twelve, but Adamek was the better boxer-puncher this night. The judges scored it 114-112, 115-111 and 113-113 for the champ Tomasz Adamek.