Bek Nurmaganbet Blows Away Steven Sumter in a Wednesday Matinee

Bek Nurmaganbet Blows Away Steven Sumter in a Wednesday Matinee

The first of two mid-week undercards designed as teasers for Saturday’s megafight between Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford played out this afternoon at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas. In the featured attraction, a battle of southpaws in the super middleweight division, Bek Nurmaganbet scored his 11^th straight knockout, advancing his record to 15-0 (13) at the expense of Massachusetts campaigner Steven Sumter (11-2-1) whose corner wisely pulled him out after three lopsided rounds.

A former national amateur champion in his native Kazakhstan, the 27-year-old Nurmaganbet, a fighter to watch, has been training with Canelo Alvarez, as have several others showcased on this card.

Other Bouts of Note

Burly heavyweight Yoandy Toirac, from Coral Gables, Florida, by way of Havana, was held to a draw by Skylar Lacy in a six-round contest.

Toirac had knocked out his three previous opponents, most recently 44-year-old Rydell Booker in a match held in a Nashville brewery. Against the six-foot-seven Lacy, the well-touted Toirac, 30 (perhaps older), looked slow of foot and had difficulty putting his punches together. Lacy,

the former University of Louisville gridder who has been profiled in these pages, fought mostly off his back foot but was pesky and the stalemate was a fair decision.

Lacy, looking to rebound from his first defeat, a loss by disqualification to Brandon Moore in a messy fight, saw his record move to 8-1-3.

In the lid-lifter, 20-year-old Liverpool flyweight Mikie Tallon, in his first fight outside England, turned in a sharp performance to turn away spunky Christian Robles (9-4), scoring two knockdowns en route to winning a unanimous decision. The scores were 59-53 across the board for Tallon who improved to 10-0 (1).

In the walkout fight, lanky junior middleweight Abdullah Darkazanly, fighting with Abel Sanchez in his corner, improved to 2-0 (1) with a TKO of SoCal’s Kody Koboski (4-3) who was rescued by the referee at the 1L23 mark of round three, A kickboxing champion in Germany, Darkazanly now resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he trains in a gym named for Mike Tyson.

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