Two-time Olympic heavyweight gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov (15-0, 14 KOs) won a lackluster 10-round unanimous decision over the slow, 297-lb Ihor ‘Hulk’ Shevadzutskyi (12-3, 10 KOs) on Saturday night at the Barys Arena, Astana, in Kazakhstan.
The scores were 100-89, 97-92, and 97-93.
Fighting for the first time in two years as a pro, the 6’7″ Jalolov dropped the 35-year-old Ukrainian Shevadzutskyi in the third round with a straight left down the pipe. That was the easily the high point of this poorly fought performance from Jalolov.
Clinched and Fatigued
Shevadzutskyi slowly followed Jalolov around the ring from rounds four through ten, rarely throwing a hard punch and mostly getting tied up. He showed better power on his shots than Jalolov but wasn’t throwing, presumably for fear of gassing. The ‘Hulk’ was in such poor physical shape that he couldn’t risk letting his hands go without gassing out.
In the last two rounds, Jalolov looked badly fatigued and held nonstop whenever Shevadzutskyi would get close to him. It was clear that Jalolov had nothing left in the gas tank and needed to hold on to keep from getting knocked out.
In the tenth round, Jalolov appeared vulnerable when getting hit during the clinch. If this had been a better heavyweight, it’s possible that he would have been knocked out.
The way that Jalolov looked tonight, he’s NOT the next star in the heavyweight division to take the place of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Going into tonight’s contest, many boxing fans believed that the two-time Olympic gold medalist Jalolov was capable of taking over the division. However, as we saw in this fight, he doesn’t have the gas tank to fight hard, and he’s timid when getting hit.
I watched a lot of Jalolov’s fights during his amateur career; he was just as vulnerable then as when fighting pressure fighters. What saved him was the fights only being three rounds instead of 10 or 12.
In the pro ranks, Jalolov isn’t going to be able to hang with the top fighters because he doesn’t possess the stamina or the heart. He looked 100% afraid tonight from the pressure he was dealing with from the slow-moving, Butterbean-looking ‘Hulk.’