Fighting Sports

Home page

Fighting Sports

Russiaâ€™s Povetkin Retains WBA Title With Knockout

30 September 2012 02:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. WBA heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin has defended his title in a bout against former WBC, IBO and IBF champion Hasim Rahman by stopping his U.S. challenger with TKO in the second round, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.
The fight took place in Germany on Saturday night.
Povetkin controlled the first round with several well-placed jabs while Rahman offered some resistance.
In the second round, the Russian boxer pummeled the American with a number of strong blows from the very start and sent his opponent into the ropes.
The beating continued until the referee had to stop the fight 1:36 into the round when he saw that the American was unable to defend himself.
The 33-year-old Povetkin improved to 25-0 with his 17th knockout. Rahman, 39, dropped to 50-8-2 after his first bout since June 2011.
Povetkin, who is nicknamed the White Lion and known as a strident Russian nationalist, won the WBA title in August 2011 by beating Russlan Chagaev, and has since defended the belt against Cedric Boswell and Marco Huck.
Rahman gained the worldâ€™s attention by beating British fighter Lennox Lewis for his three titles in April 2001, but lost the belts in a rematch seven months later.