Fast Results From Chicago: Briedis and Glowacki Bring Home the Bacon

“Stormy, husky, brawling, City of Big Shoulders,” Chicago has always been a haven for immigrants from Eastern Europe. The Windy City reportedly has the largest Polish population of any city outside Warsaw. Hence, it was not so strange that the promoters of the World Boxing Super Series elected to plant an edition of their second cruiserweight tournament at the UIC Pavilion although no American fighters appeared in any of the major bouts.

If you have been keeping score, you know that two fighters have already advanced. On Oct. 13, Andrew Tabiti went to Ekaterinburg, Russia, and won a unanimous decision over previously undefeated Ruslan Fayfer. A week later, in Orlando, Yunier Dorticos won a unanimous decision over Mateusz Masternak.

Tabiti and Dorticos will meet in the semifinals on a date and at a place to be determined. The other semifinal matchup will pit Mairis Briedis against Krzysztof Glowacki but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

In an uneventful fight marred by excessive clinching, Latvia’s Mairis Briedis, the #1 seed, eliminated Noel Mikaelian (aka Noel Gevor), winning a unanimous decision. The scores were 116-110, 115-111, and 114-112, which gave Mikaelian all the worst of it as many observers thought that Mikaelian had done just enough to cop the nod. There were no knockdowns, but both fighters had a point deducted for hitting behind the head and Mikaelian suffered a bad cut over his right eye in round nine as a result of an accidental head butt.

Briedis entered the contest ranked #2 by the WBO behind Tony Bellew who lost earlier in the day and then announced his retirement. That sets the stage for a rematch between Briedis and Oleksandr Usyk. They met last year and Briedis, fighting in his hometown of Riva, was competitive, losing a majority decision. But don’t look for that rematch to happen anytime soon and likely never. Although Briedis advanced his record to 25-1, he lost stature with his ho-hum performance. Moreover, Usyk has bigger fish to fry.

Mikaelian, who fights out of Germany, declined to 23-2.

The Briedis-Mikaelian fight was something of an omen as the nitecap of the WBSS doubleheader was also devoid of fireworks. Glowacki, a Polish southpaw whose lone defeat came at the hands of the aforementioned Usyk, turned away Russia’s Maksim Vlasov by scores of 118-110, 117-110, and 115-112 to improve to 30-1. Vlasov who entered the contest riding a 12-fight winning streak, fell to 42-3.

Glowacki was credited with a dubious knockdown in the third round. Vlasov, who was caught off balance, wasn’t hurt. In round 11, a clash of heads left Glowacki with a cut under his left eye and produced a knot on Vlasov’s forehead. Although the bout wasn’t especially entertaining, the result was pleasing to the Glowacki faction which constituted the bulk of the audience.

Other Bouts

In a 10-round cruiserweight contest, Germany’s Artur Mann improved to 15-0 with a 10-round decision over Alexey Zubov. A Detroit-based Russian, Zubov (17-2) was lucky to survive the opening round after getting knocked down twice.  He fought his way back into the fight, out-working Mann in some of the middle rounds, but Mann frequently found a home for his uppercut and won comfortably on the scorecards: 98-89 twice and 96-91.

Also, Shohjahon Ergashev, a rangy southpaw from Uzbekistan, now residing Detroit, blew away overmatched Zack Ramsey in the opening round. The undefeated Ergashev, who reportedly had 250 amateur bouts, has won 13 of his 14 pro fights inside the distance. It was the fourth straight loss for Ramsey (8-5).

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