There is life in the old dog yet. Written off by many due to his age, Alexander Povetkin defied the naysayers with an emphatic fifth round knockout of a shellshocked Dillian Whyte as Matchroom’s Fight Camp drew to a memorable close in Brentwood on Saturday night.
With ‘interim champion’ Whyte seeking to rubberstamp his position as the WBC’s No.1 challenger and enforce a title shot against Tyson Fury next year, the 40-year-old Povetkin dashed those plans with a ferocious left uppercut in the fifth that sent the Londoner crashing heavily to the deck with no chance of recovery.
Photo: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing.
The fight’s shocking conclusion seemed highly unlikely a round earlier when Povetkin was dropped twice after a left hook and a left uppercut in a torrid fourth.
Povetkin was the busier man early and caused plenty of issues with his bodywork, but behind a solid jab Whyte’s blows seemed to carry the greater devil. Yet the former WBA champion was merely biding his time before the brutal finale, shaking up the heavyweight title picture and clearing one obstacle towards a Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua superfight in 2021.
“I didn’t think I would end the fight like this, but I was pretty confident in the fourth round. I did go down twice, but it was okay, it wasn’t too much damage,” Povetkin told Sky Sports. “I got woke up. I was watching his fights and taking account that he was missing uppercuts from the left and right, so in training I was doing those shots. My future doesn’t depend on me, it is down to my promoter and Eddie [Hearn] and we will see what they decide.”
Photo: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing.
Afterwards, Whyte’s promoter Hearn said the defeated Londoner had a rematch clause that he would exercise. “I’m pretty much lost for words, if I’m honest with you,” Hearn told Sky Sports. “We have a rematch clause. The first thing Dillian said was, ‘Get me that rematch, get me that rematch’. We’ll exercise that rematch clause. We’ll look to make that before the end of the year and it’s a huge fight.”
But this was Povetkin’s night after registering a KO that will live long in the memory.
Photo: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing.
Undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor apparently settled her argument with old rival Delfine Persoon by earning a hard-fought decision in their grudge match return. Scores were 98-93 and 96-94 (twice).
In June 2019, Taylor was drawn into a war and won a close majority decision that Belgian Persoon bitterly contested. This time, the technically superior Taylor boxed a shrewder fight but still had to stave off Persoon’s endless pressure to maintain her standing as the best lightweight in the world.
“It’s never easy against Delfine, she is relentless,” admitted Taylor. “I knew I had to dig deep. I boxed better than last time. I stuck to my boxing more. That got me through. I hit her with clean shots but she attacked all the time. What an amazing two fights for women’s boxing. I was more convincing tonight. I got a convincing win.”
Second time around, Persoon accepted the outcome without complaint though some observers felt she had done enough again. “This time I respect the result. The weight was too much,” she said. “I ate, ate, ate, but didn’t have the power to hurt her. I could not hurt her. And, if you can’t hurt her, she is technical and runs around. You have to hurt her.
“She deserves the win. I respect her. I’ve got no problem. In the second round, I broke my nose. Super-feather is my weight, not lightweight. My respect to her. She deserves the win today.”
In another close, competitive fight, Taylor frustrated a relentless Persoon early with her clever movement, stellar technique and crisper punches. The Belgian wrestled Taylor to the canvas in the first but was unable to impose her physicality yet. A bloodied Persoon was badly swollen under the right eye and generally picked off by Taylor’s sharper work, but the Belgian kept pouring forward.
Photo: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing.
Persoon’s endless aggression made greater inroads in the fourth, but Taylor’s accuracy and more adroit defence just about held sway. The Irish star was given another rigorous examination but held firm under a torrid assault.
An under-fire Taylor was encumbered by a swelling on her forehead and was twice wrestled to the ground in a roughhouse eighth. Persoon detonated a big right hand in a strong session, but Taylor willingly met fire with fire. The Belgian continued to press with waves of aggression, but ate a big right hand in the last as the rivals traded to the final bell. It looked a close call again.
Unbeaten welterweight Chris Kongo backed up his pre-fight prediction of a highlight reel victory with an impressive ninth-round dismissal of Bracknell’s Luther Clay.
The tall and rangy Kongo, managed by Dillian Whyte, punished his foe for most of the fight, shrugging off Clay’s concentrated body attack. The South Londoner mastered the distance and dominated with his poise, power and precise lead.
Kongo stunned a beleaguered Clay in the fifth with a right hand that affected the Bracknell man’s equilibrium and left him on jelly legs. He survived but never looked like the turning the tables. Kongo finally closed the show in the ninth with picture-perfect left hook that sent the outgunned Clay crashing and saw the towel come in.
Earlier, Croatian heavyweight prospect Alen Babic blew away 39-year-old American Shawndell Winters with predictable ease, scoring a second-round stoppage.
Babic, Dillian Whyte’s sparring partner, received the big build-up this week after he was promoted to an unlikely pay-per-view slot after the Martin Bakole-Sergey Kuzmin fight fell through. As expected, the contest proved a wholly inadequate replacement.
The crude but heavy-handed Croatian simply walked through the hapless Winters, dropping him with successive left hooks at the end of the first before finishing matters a round later when a heavy barrage, culminating in a left hook, sent the American down once more and referee John Latham waved it off.
Zak Chelli appeared unfortunate to draw with Jack Cullen in a super-middleweight 10-rounder that never really caught light as a spectacle with a number of scrappy rounds. Scores were 97-93 (Chelli), 96-95 (Cullen) and 95-95 even.
Cullen had the advantages in height and reach but ate jabs all night as Chelli, nursing a swelling round the left eye in the third, seemed to pull away on the cards from about the fourth round. Bleeding around the left eye, Cullen struggled with fatigue as Chelli took over with crunching left hooks and a much sharper shot selection. It looked a poor decision.