Mandatory challenger Murat Gassiev battles unified cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev in bout that has explosive written all over it. The cruiserweight division is for the most part off the radar away from mainstream attention. Many of the sports long list of legends in the past reigned at middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight. Never a glamour division however in recent years it’s consistently produced great fights and top-ten matchups.
It’s been a nice alternative to many of the heavyweights nowadays, who are too large to keep an active punch rate and often end up gassing out midway thru a fight. The cruisers tend to be in better physical shape but still pack a punch which is the case in this unification dust-up. Take the two-belt champion in Denis Lebedev as example. He comes to fight, doesn’t lack power, and has a helluva chin. Murat Gassiev prefers to stalk his opponent and poses real one-punch knockout power which is evident by a nasty left hook ‘KO of the year’ candidate landed in his last fight in May.
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