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John Joe Nevin Fought For More Than A Medal

“Can I have four tickets to whatever event is on here now?” asks a German tourist at the ticket office outside London’s Excel Arena.
“You mean the boxing? Not a chance, mate,” says the man behind the counter, unable to withhold a smirk. Tickets for the 10,000 seat arena are sold out for the Olympic semi-finals, just as they have been every day over the last two weeks.
Difficulties in viewing the competition aren’t limited to London. Across the sea in the Irish town of Mullingar the family of John Joe Nevin gather to watch the boxer in a local pub moments before he meets Cuba’s Lázaro Álvarez in the Olympic bantamweight silver medal contest. They enter the pub but are told to leave. Arguments ensue, accusations are made. Other pubs in the town shut their doors, not wanting the group’s business. Nevin’s family have to venture six miles outside Mullingar to find somewhere that will let them in to watch the bout.
***
It’s been a difficult few years for Ireland. The once heralded “Celtic Tiger” economy dramatically collapsed in 2008, with the nation subsequently forced to accept external financial aid as thousands of young jobseekers emigrate in search of work. The lack of opportunity in people’s lives has stymied their own ambition and seen an increased unity behind the national sporting teams; essentially anything that can distract from the perpetual headlines detailing rising unemployment and economic stagnation.
The teams haven’t obliged, with the much-hyped rugby squad underperforming at the world cup late last year, while the soccer team was pitifully out-classed this summer at its first appearance in the European championships in 24 years. Those disappointments left a lot of scope for the Olympic boxers to capture public attention. Before London 2012, Ireland had won a total of four medals in all sports over the last three Games, and three of them were in boxing. Katie Taylor duly obliged public expectation and won the female competition and John Joe Nevin was seen as the best hope of emulating Michael Carruth to win Ireland’s first male gold since 1992.
John Waters of the Irish Times recently explained Ireland’s obsession with sport: “An Olympic medal, or a creditable appearance by an Irish team in the finals of some international competition, is proposed as something fundamental, rather than a mere passing cause for celebration. And it is indeed as if such successes occur to provide a kind of hope by proxy for the entire population, for whom more enduring forms of hope are nowadays culturally inaccessible.”
Nevin, 23, has been regarded as the best Irish male amateur since 2008. After being eliminated in his second contest at the Beijing Games, he later won two bronze medals at world championships. A relaxed counter-puncher in the ring, he boxes with a confident style, typically avoiding punches by a deft move of the head, putting himself in a position with strike with a sharp right cross. Yet in the months leading up to London his performances slumped. He was beaten by opponents that should have been routine tune-ups. Several members of the Irish team said the pressure was getting to Nevin. “He told me a few months ago that he wanted to pull out of the Games,” said 2008 Olympic silver medallist Kenny Egan. “He didn’t want to go through with it.”
In addition to dealing with the expectations of a success-starved nation, Nevin’s distinct heritage has brought additional difficulties. He is part of the Travelling community, a traditionally nomadic group considered a distinct ethnic minority in Ireland and Great Britain. The Traveller population in Ireland nears 30,000 and in recent years the group have become more integrated into the broader society, with many living in fixed houses and attending public schools. But the relationship between the communities is uneasy. The Traveller culture suffers from stigmas of violence and crime not helped by the portrayal of their idiosyncratic customs with a voyeuristic curiosity in the mainstream media via “exposé” documentaries on bare-knuckle boxing and reality shows like My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. As with many minorities, the actions of a few taint an entire community.
Few Travellers have been depicted as positive role models. Former boxer Francis Barrett is the most notable exception. Barrett competed for Ireland at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the popularity of his story saw him carry the nation’s flag at the Games’ opening ceremony. The gesture was expected to be a major breakthrough moment for the Travelling community. It wasn’t.
“Six weeks after I came back from the Olympic Games, I was turned away from a bar,” recalled Barrett. “I wouldn't say all Travellers are good. Some cause fights, drunken arguments and break places up, but you should not paint them all with the one brush.”
Sixteen years later Nevin’s family had to journey miles outside their hometown to find a public place that would allow them watch their next of kin approach the zenith of his vocation.
“It is wrong,” said Barrett of the apparent discrimination that faced Nevin’s family on the day of his semi-final bout. “If African or Polish people were not served in pubs because of their nationality there would be big trouble and so there should be. It is a disgrace that these pub landlords closed the door of the pubs. By rights they should be proud; John Joe is fighting for his country.”
Nevin’s cousin Martin said John Joe learned of the situation just moments before his contest with Cuba’s Álvarez. “He really took it personally,” claimed Martin. “He asked me was there a problem with him, whether the local people unhappy with his performance at the Olympics. He was really upset because he thought it was about him. He was in tears.”
But the anguish seemed to stir Nevin into the greatest performance of his career, culminating in a 19-14 points win over Álvarez. Nevin became the first Traveller to win an Olympic medal and expectations were high that he could beat Great Britain’s Luke Campbell to win gold the following Saturday night.
***
The strains of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” bring the crowd to its feet, with John Joe Nevin emerging into the arena first. Significantly less Irish fans are here than for Katie Taylor’s bouts earlier in the week, but those in attendance do their best to make themselves heard. Decked out in red vest and shorts, Nevin bounces on his toes, wearing a broad smile. Accompanied by coaches Billy Walsh and Zaur Anita in resplendent green tracksuits, Nevin raises his gloves to the crowd, signalling a contentment with the task in hand. He may be genuinely at ease, or putting on a front, but in a few minutes it won’t matter; attempts at illusion are quickly dispelled in the ring. Bounding up the steps and through the ropes, Nevin skirts the ring’s perimeter before briefly settling in front of his opponent’s corner where he wipes the soles of his shoes on the canvas as if marking his territory. He moves to his own red corner where Walsh affixes a headguard that will protect from superficial injury, but can do little to diffuse the concussive blows of an Olympic opponent.
As Luke Campbell comes into view the noise of the crowd reaches new decibels. The Irish fans gallantly respond with soccer-style chants but are soon drowned out by the locals’ booming repetition of “Campbell, Campbell”. There’s sincerity in Campbell’s approach; head down, he walks quickly with purpose to the ring. His face expressionless, he seems tense, as he should be. At the foot of the ring’s steps he jumps in the air, bringing his knees into his chest in an effort to shake out the nerves that likely make his legs feel like lead.
With introductions underway, the boxers prepare for nine minutes of combat dissected into three rounds in which they hope the judges at ringside will acknowledge every punch they land by pressing an electronic button.
As the round starts Nevin, boxing from an orthodox stance, immediately looks to assert himself by stepping firmly onto his southpaw opponent’s lead foot. He does this several more times, but the referee is quick to issue a caution. Campbell, the taller, rangier boxer, seeks to keep the fight at a distance by constantly moving while launching long, straight punches. Nevin has a sturdier look about him and is prepared to stand flat-footed and lean away before quickly throwing looping right hands. Each man tries to impose his will, hoping to draw the other away from their well-rehearsed strategy.
Billy Walsh sits ringside gulping back water. He’s fidgeting, crossing his legs, cracking knuckles, trying to subdue the adrenaline. Nevin seems to be almost trying too hard, with his eagerness to score compelling him move forward instead of boxing off the back foot. He gets caught by Campbell’s long right hand through the round and as the bell sounds the Irishman is behind 5-3.
In the second, Walsh forgets his restraint, snapping out right hand– left hook combinations. Nevin lands a solid right and Walsh leaps off his chair, pumping his fist. The punch gives Nevin momentum and by round’s end the deficit is reduced at 8-9. Behind by one score, Nevin knows he has to press the action. Desperation leads him to chase Campbell, who midway through the round smoothly steps back and catches an onrushing Nevin with a hard right hook. Nevin falls to the canvas. He recovers his senses quickly and unleashes a flurry of combinations through the remainder of the round. Some blows appear to connect, while others are deflected off Campbell’s gangly arms.
As the contest ends Nevin stands in the ring’s center. He blesses himself and looks skyward, praying that the oft-erratic scoring will go in his favour. When the final result of 14-11 is announced for Campbell there are no complaints from the Irish contingent. As the arena lets out a thunderous roar, Nevin fulfils the obligatory congratulations for his triumphant opponent. After leaving the ring, Walsh puts a red robe onto Nevin’s listless body and a white towel over his bowed head.
Nearly half an hour later the boxers are summoned back into the ring for the medal ceremony. Nevin is cleaned-up and dressed in a green Irish tracksuit, but his face remains solemn. Just three punches landed or blocked and he could be standing up where Campbell is, allowing the Irish fans to wave their tricolours to “Amhrán na bhFiann” instead of enduring the deep bellows of “God Save the Queen”.
After descending from the podium the boxers make their way from the ring. Nevin gives Campbell a final pat on the shoulder, but it goes unnoticed as the gold medallist is quickly surrounded by a horde of cameras and reporters. Nevin circumvents the gathering toward a small gathering of Irish media. He says a few words, has his picture taken with the tricolour and walks alone into the bowels of the arena.
***
Back in Mullingar applause resonates around the town center where a crowd of 5,000 [one quarter of the town’s population] has just watched the ceremony on a specially erected 13-foot outdoor screen. While Nevin’s immediate family decided to stay away from the town, many of his extended clan are among the spectators. Yet it is difficult to tell people apart; most blend together in a sea of green and gold. The town center belongs to no one and everyone, each person sharing common ground without disagreement or unrest; a community brought together by a young man’s sporting endeavours.
“I’m glad of Mullingar, what they done for John Joe,” said Nevin’s mother Winnie later that night. “I was watching it on television and there was a queer [astonishing] atmosphere in Mullingar at the Market Square, and fair play to the Mullingar people, but not the pubs, the pubs is a disgrace.”
Around the country 1.2 of the 5 million population tuned into the bout on television, with many more venturing to pubs and other pubic venues. The following Monday an estimated 7,000 people lined the streets of Mullingar to welcome back Nevin as he was paraded on an open-top bus.
“Today it’s a dream come true for me to come back and get represented by such a big crowd,” said Nevin at his homecoming. “It’s great to see all my family here. I was devastated to lose the final but saying that, I’ve gotten so far and a month ago I was talking about not going [to the Olympics].”
That Nevin didn’t win gold is insignificant. He ultimately absorbed the expectation of country and community and as part of the most successful boxing team in Ireland’s Olympic history he showed that the small island can still compete with the best. Whether rich or poor, Traveller or settled, few can be untouched by the success of the Olympian that runs on their town’s roads, trains at a nearby gym and breathes the same damp Irish air.
Nevin’s success won’t see the masses flock to boxing clubs, nor will it wholly change broad perceptions of the Travelling community. But when the youth of Ireland are discouraged by the shortage of opportunity or fearing immigration, maybe in the coming months they will think of how Nevin had his own setbacks before he achieved on the grandest stage. He has provided a flicker of inspiration to a generation in danger of losing the ability to dream.
Ronan Keenan can be contacted at ronankeenan@yahoo.com
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Sebastian Fundora TKOs Chordale Booker in Las Vegas

Sebastian Fundora proved too tall and too powerful for challenger Chordale Booker in retaining the WBC and WBO super welterweight titles by TKO on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Despite a year off, Fundora (22-1-1, 14 KOs) showed the shorter fellow southpaw Booker (23-2) that rust would not be a factor in front of the crowd at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
“I felt ready this whole time. I’ve been working very hard,” said Fundora.
Behind a massive height advantage Fundora jabbed away at Booker, the subject of an award-winning documentary called “The Boxer” in 2016. It portrayed his journey from nearly being imprisoned and having boxing as an outlet to success on the streets.
Booker tried to offset Fundora’s height but could not.
Fundora established his long spearing jab to maintain a zone of safety and when Booker ventured past the zone, he was met with uppercuts and lefts.
It was a puzzle Booker could not figure out.
Fundora won the WBO and WBC titles with an upset over Australia’s much heralded Tim Tszyu. Though accepting the fight within mere weeks of the fight to replace Keith Thurman, the fighter known as the “Towering Inferno” was able to out-fight the favored Aussie to win by split decision.
Nearly a year passed since winning the titles and the months without action did not deter him from stepping on the gas second round and overwhelming the shorter Booker with a blistering attack.
Booker tried to survive and counter but no such luck.
In the fourth round a right hook by Booker was met with a thunderous four-punch combination by Fundora. A left uppercut snapped the head back of Booker who was clearly dazed by the blow. Another three-punch combination and the fight was stopped at 2:51 of the fourth round.
Fundora retained the WBC and WBO titles by technical knockout.
“We were training to wear him down,” said Fundora. “I’m a powerful fighter. With this fight I guess it showed even more.”
The two-belt champion is now smack in the middle of one of the most talented weight division in men’s boxing.
“I would love to be undisputed like my sister,” said Fundora of his sister Gabriela Fundora the undisputed flyweight world champion. “
Other Bouts
Arizona’s Jesus Ramos Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) knocked out Argentina’s Guido Schramm (16-4-2) in the seventh round of their super welterweight match. Ramos, a southpaw, caught Schramm with a left that paralyzed him along he ropes. The referee stopped the match at 1:38 of the seventh.
Arizona’s Elijah Garcia (17-1, 13 KOs) survived a knockdown by talented veteran Terrell Gausha (24-5-1) in the first round to mount a rally and win by split decision after 10 rounds in a middleweight match up.
Photo credit: Ryan Hafey / Premier Boxing Champions
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Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman

Bernard Fernandez Reflects on His Special Bond with George Foreman
For pretty much the entirety of my career as a sportswriter, I have doggedly adhered to the principle that there is a line separating professional integrity from unabashed fandom, and for me to cross it would be a violation of everything I believed in as a representative of whatever media outlet I was writing for at the time. In 50-plus years, only once did I cross that line. It was when I was in Canastota, N.Y., for an International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend and I had submitted the winning bid in a silent auction for an autographed photo of the great Carmen Basilio, being hoisted onto the shoulders of trainer Angelo Dundee and another cornerman after winning a title bout. I have that photo, which also was signed by Angelo, hanging on the wall of my apartment.
I broke my self-imposed rule by asking Carmen to pose with me holding the photo because he was my father’s favorite fighter, and thus mine when I was a little kid watching the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports Friday Night Fights with my dad, a former pro welterweight and Navy veteran of World War II in the Pacific before he became a much-decorated police officer. Anyway, Carmen was long-since retired and I chose to believe that on the grand scale of professional propriety, my posing with him was nothing more than a small blip on a very large radar screen.
But with the shocking news that George Foreman had passed away on March 21, at the age of 76, it suddenly occurred to me that my idealistic principles have forever prevented me from having an autographed photo of Big George hanging on the same wall with the one of Basilio, which I no doubt will regret to my dying day. If I had bent my own standards of how a sportswriter should act in his dealings with one of his interview subjects, I might even have had one of George and I together, side by side, as is the case with any number of my colleagues who asked for and were granted photo op access to the famous athletes they covered.
Why do I now place George Foreman in a separate category from so many other elite fighters I have covered during my career? Had I not rigidly held to my belief that it was unprofessional and maybe even a bit unethical to cross that inviolable line, I might now have photos of myself standing alongside Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Lennox Lewis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns, Bernard Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad, not to mention such legends of other sports as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Walter Payton, Wayne Gretzky, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and the quarterbacking family of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning.
I had, of course, covered a number of Big George’s fights, but although he knew of me, it was not to the extent that he considered me to be a friend. All that changed, however, through the intercession of a mutual friend, boxing publicist Bill Caplan, whose relationship with George was longstanding and so deeply ingrained as to be almost familial.
My newspaper, the Philadelphia Daily News, had sent me to Los Angeles to cover a bout in which Julio Cesar Chavez was to fight Philly’s Ivan Robinson. Despite increasing pain, I somehow managed to file features on both main-event participants in the days before fight night prior to my arrival at the Staples Center in a condition that had gone from bad to worse. Bill noticed my distress in the press room and said he was going to get a ringside physician to check me out. “Maybe after the fight I came here to cover is over,” I told him, grimacing through gritted teeth. But Bill insisted that I get a medical opinion, and quickly, and the doctor who took my blood pressure said it was at a near-stroke level and that I needed to be transported by ambulance to a hospital ASAP. In the emergency room, it was determined that I was suffering from an unpassed kidney stone, a problem I had had several times previously, but not to this extent. I did not cover the fight I had come to see, of course, but I was able to make it back home alive and reasonably well before receiving additional treatment.
George Foreman did the foreword for my first boxing anthology, Championship Rounds, but he consented to do so only after he consulted with Bill Caplan to inquire if I was a writer who could be trusted not to twist his words to fit my own narrative. Bill told him I was a fair guy and that he should do the foreword once he had read the manuscript and deemed it worthy of an endorsement. It didn’t hurt that when I spoke with George by telephone, I remarked that he “owed” me. “Why do I owe you?” he asked, seemingly amused. “Because I bought two of your grills,” I replied, which drew the chuckle from him I had hoped to get.
More than a few of my colleagues at various media outlets can accurately say that George considered them to be his friends, but my relationship with him continued to grow. It didn’t hurt that I was on very amicable terms with his younger brother Roy Foreman, who lives just outside Atlantic City, and whenever I needed to speak to George directly he either answered right away or returned my call at his earliest convenience. I also don’t think it hurt that my father had once appeared in a primary undercard bout of a show in San Diego in the 1940s that was headlined by the great Archie Moore, who would later serve as one of George’s most trusted advisers. Before George’s very respectable but losing performance against heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, the challenger confided that “Archie is the only one who can tell me anything. When Archie Moore takes you to the side to tell you something, you can’t argue because he knows. I can’t argue with Archie Moore. When he tells me something, I have to say, `Yes, sir, that’s right.’”
Maybe the only person George trusted as much as the “Old Mongoose” was Bill Caplan, and it was Bill who told his dear friend of the abject grief my family and I were enduring after my wife, who had been battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, passed away on May 5 of last year. I would prefer not to divulge any details of something that shall forever remain private, but what George did in support of me and mine, and to honor the memory of a great lady who he never met, went above and beyond.
I included stories I did on George in three of my five boxing anthologies that already are in print (a sixth likely will come out this June), and I’d like to believe that our connection was solid enough that he shared the sort of insights that revealed him to be so much more than a devastating puncher inside the ropes. He was a quality human being in his everyday life, an individual who was widely admired and deserved to be recognized as such. But even if that were not the case, he would stand nearly alone for his ability to hit as hard as any heavyweight who ever lived. In recalling what it was like to share the ring with Big George in the epic “Rumble in the Jungle,” which Ali won by eighth-round knockout on Oct. 30, 1974, the victor said, “If you take any two heavyweights you can think of, and multiply (their punching power) by two, that’s George Foreman.”
Maybe Foreman might have fared better in that much-hyped bout in Kinshasa, Zaire, had he paced himself a bit more, but then that would not have been in keeping with his long-held belief that it did not pay for a powerful puncher to parcel his energy in measured doses.
“When you’re a puncher, it’s a real mysterious, almost magical thing,” he told me. “Guys who can’t punch, one thing they got to have is a lot of bravery because they knew they had to go 10 rounds, 12 rounds, 15 rounds almost every time. Punchers live with the fear if a fight keeps going another round, another round, they’re somehow going to lose. Every fight I ever had, I went for the knockout and nothing else. I didn’t really think I could win a decision. Even when I won on points, I felt like I failed.”
But even Big George didn’t have enough power to kayo the Grim Reaper indefinitely, although he might have dared to believe he could make that happen by dint of his indomitable will. After he won his first heavyweight championship, dethroning Joe Frazier by registering six knockdowns in less than two rounds on Jan. 22, 1973, in Kingston, Jamaica, the new king of the big men said, “All of a sudden I’m beating a guy like Joe Frazier, who could punch like he could and never stop coming at you? I left there thinking, `Nobody can stand up to me.’ I just believed that if I caught anybody with a right uppercut or a left hook, he’s gone. I could knock anybody out with either hand. It seemed impossible to me that I could lose.”
In posting a 76-5 career record with 68 victories inside the distance, Big George didn’t lose often. Now that he’s taken his earthly leave, I can only regret the fact that I didn’t cross that line and ask him to pose for a picture with me. I hope he somehow knows that I shall forever be in debt for the graciousness he exhibited toward my wife and my family when we needed just such a gesture not only from a legendary fighter, but a true friend.
Editor’s note: Bernard Fernandez entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the class of 2020. The greatly-admired publicist Bill Caplan, now in his late 80’s, entered the Hall in 2022.
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Results and Recaps from Sydney where George Kambosos Upended Late Sub Jake Wyllie

In his first fight at 140 pounds and his first fight in Sydney, his hometown, in more than eight years, George Kambosos Jr scored a unanimous decision over late sub Jake Wyllie, a fellow Aussie who took the fight on five days’ notice. Kambosos won by scores of 115-113 and 117-111 twice.
Wyllie, a massive underdog, had his moments, particularly in round eight, and scored a moral victory by lasting the distance. At the final bell, it was Kambosos that looked the worse for wear after suffering a bad gash above his left eye from an accidental head butt in round nine, but most observers were in accord with the two judges that gave him nine of the 12 rounds.
Kambosos, who improved to 22-3 (10), scored his signature win in November of 2021 at Madison Square Garden with a narrow decision over lightweight belts holder Teofimo Lopez. Heading in, the Sydneysider, a longtime Manny Pacquiao sparring partner, was considered nothing more than a high-class journeyman and, notwithstanding that well-earned upset, the shoe still fits.
Astutely managed, Kambosos parlayed that triumph into several lucrative paydays with another forthcoming as he is slated to meet IBF 140-pound belt-holder Richardson Hitchins in June providing that the cut is fully healed. Hitchins captured the title in December in San Juan with a split decision over another Aussie, Liam Paro.
A 24-year-old Queenslander, Jake Wyllie had won 16 of his previous 18 fights with one no-contest. He was a step-up from Kambosos’ original opponent, 37-year-old Indonesian Daud Yordan who pulled out with an injury. After the match, Wyllie said, “I fought my heart out tonight and I feel like I am destined for great things.” With his gutsy effort, he earned a contract from Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn.
Co-feature
Queensland southpaw Skye Nicolson, one of Eddie Hearn’s favorite fighters, suffered her first pro defeat in the semi-wind-up, losing a split decision to U.S. import Tiara Brown who came in undefeated (18-0, 11 KOs) but hadn’t defeated anyone of note and was lightly-regarded. The popular Nicolson, making the third defense of the WBC featherweight title she won in Las Vegas with a wide decision over Denmark’s Sarah Mahfoud, was a consensus 8/1 favorite.
This was an entertaining affair. The scores were 97-93 and 96-94 for Brown with the dissenter favoring Nicholson (12-1) by a 96-94 tally. Tiara Brown, a 36-year-old Floridian, is one of several top-tier female boxers represented by Philadelphia booking agent Brian Cohen.
Other Bouts of Note
In a WBA bantamweight title fight, Cherneka Johnson successfully defended her title with a seventh-round stoppage of Nina Hughes. The one-sided affair was stopped by the referee at the 46-second mark of round seven with the assent of Hughes’ corner. A 30-year-old Australia-based New Zealander of Maori stock, Johnson advanced to 17-2 (7 KOs).
This was a rematch. They fought last year in Perth and Johnson won a majority decision that was somewhat controversial when Hughes was originally, but erroneously, identified as the winner. A 42-year-old Englishwoman, Hughes declined to 6-2.
Teremoana Junior, one of the newest members of the Matchroom stable, blasted out James Singh in the opening round. A six-foot-six heavyweight from Brisbane with a Cook Islands lineage, Teremoana came out with guns blazing and Singh, a burly but fragile Fijian, lasted only 132 seconds before he was rescued by the referee.
Teremoana, who turned pro after losing to the formidable Bakhodir Jalolov in the Paris Olympics, has won all seven of his pro fights by knockout. None of his opponents has lasted beyond the second round.
In a 10-round light heavyweight contest, Imam Khataev (10-0, 9 KOs) was extended the distance for the first time in his career by Durval Elias Palacio, but won comfortably on the cards (98-90, 99-89, 99-89).
Despite the wide scores, this was a hard fight for the Australia-based Russian, an Olympic bronze medalist whose physique is sculpted from the same mold as Mike Tyson (relatively short of stature with a thick neck hinged to a thick torso). Khataev had a point deducted for a low blow in round five and ended the bout with a swollen left eye. A 34-year-old Argentine, Palacio proved to be better than his record, currently 14-4.
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