No stranger to a war, Denis Lebedev has compared Alexander Povetkin’s chilling knockout of Dillian Whyte to the finishing prowess of a peak Mike Tyson.
On Saturday night, Povetkin overcame adversity and two knockdowns to spark WBC No.1 heavyweight contender Whyte with a perfectly-timed left uppercut at Matchroom’s Fight Camp in Brentwood.
Former WBA Super and IBF cruiserweight champion Lebedev was full of praise for his fellow Russian and former stablemate.
“There can be only one opinion on this fight – it’s just the beauty of boxing,” Lebedev told Russian journalist Oleg Bogatov. “This is what the heavyweight division is famous for. It would seem that everything is already a foregone conclusion, but no, not in this case, not today. Boom and that’s it. What a beautiful knockout.
“Probably, we can say that Alexander’s punch was in the style of a young Mike Tyson. It was a cool punch, everything was done in a textbook manner – a beautiful [delivery], a punch from a slope to the chin. This is a school boxing of the [old] USSR.
“The year is not over yet, but I think it will be one of the brightest knockouts [of 2020]. And, of course, it can become the knockout of the year.”