Heavyweight contender Zhilei Zhang (27-2-1, 22 KOs) didn’t disappoint, knocking out former WBC champion Deontay Wilder (43-4-1, 42 KOs) in the fifth round, giving Queensberry a clean sweep in the 5 vs. 5 event on Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh.
Zhang landed two big right hands to the head of Wilder in the fifth round to put him down flat on his back on the canvas. When the badly hurt Deontay got back up, the referee waved it off after seeing that he was not in any condition to continue. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:51 of round five.
In a major upset, Daniel Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs) wore down and stopped previously unbeaten Filip Hrgovic (17-1, 14 KOs) in the eighth round to win the IBF interim heavyweight title.
Dubois took a lot of hard shots from the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Hrgovic in rounds one through five. However, Dubois just kept coming, landing his hard shots, causing cuts over both of the 31-year-old Hrgovic’s eyes.
By the seventh round, Hrgovic was exhausted, nearly defenseless on his feet, getting hammered by the younger, stronger 26-year-old Dubois. Hrgovic was saved by the bell in the seventh.
In the eighth round, Dubois went for the finish, nailing Hrgovic with hard punches. The referee stopped the action and had Hrgovic’s cuts exhamied by the ringside doctor, who had the referee stop the fight. The time of the stoppage was at :57 of round eight.
WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs) defeated his replacement opponent Malik Zinad (22-1, 16 KOs) by a sixth-round technical knockout.
Bivol, 33, hurt the upset-minded Zinad with a right hand in round six and then unleashed a storm of shots to cause the referee Howard Foster to stop the fight. The time of the stoppage was at 2:06 of round six.
Bivol knocked Zinad down in round one with a left hook to the head. Zinad had been fighting well up to that point, connecting with many stiff right hands and jabs.
Zinad kept Bivol from doing much in rounds two through five by jabbing and throwing powerful right hands. He showed excellent power with the shots he was hitting Bivol with, and he made him not want to attack the way he normally does.
Undefeated middleweight contender Hamzah Sheeraz (20-0, 16 KOs) used his height and reach to wear down and stop Austin ‘Ammo’ Williams (16-1, 11 KOs) in round eleven of a WBC title eliminator.
Sheeraz, the Queensberry Team captain, unloaded sledgehammer shots at the start of the eleventh to stagger Williams, sending him backward. The referee, Mark Lyson, then stepped in and waved it off.
Late in the tenth round, Sheeraz dropped Ammo Williams with a perfectly timed right hand to the head. Williams was badly hurt when he got to his feet, but luckily for him, the round ended before Sheeraz could finish him off. However, Williams was too hurt to recover between rounds and was immediately stopped at the start of the 11thi round.
Williams had his moments in the fight, hurting the 6’3″ Sheeraz with a straight left to the head in round one, and staggering him again in the fourth. Sheeraz took over the fight from the fifth round, as stayed on the outside and getting nailed with his power jab and hard right hands.
Ammo’s trainer, Kevin Cunningham, continually told him to crowd Sheeraz and keep the action in close, but he wasn’t consistent in doing so. It looked like he had no confidence in his ability to hurt Sheeraz on the inside, so he would retreat to the outside to load up on his lefts.
In hindsight, that was a bad idea becaue it allowed Sheeraz to use his jab, the equivalent of a power punch, and his right hand to land big shots.
Unbeaten Nick Ball (20-0-1, 11 KOs) used his nonstop pressure to wear down and defeat WBA featherweight champion Raymond Ford (15-1-1, 8 KOs), winning a razor-close twelve-round split decision.
Scores: 115-113: Ball 115-113: Ball 115-113: Ford
Ford was cut under his right eye and above his left eye early in the contest from the shots that Ball was raining on him with his high work rate. In the seventh round, Ford landed a powerful right hand that bloodied Ball’s nose.
Ford got the better of the action from rounds seven through eleven, using his jab and pinpoint lefts to outbox Ball. In the crucial twelfth round, Ball came alive, firing uppercuts and combinations to get the better of Ford. That proved to be the critical round in the fight.
Willy Hutchinson (18-1, 13 KOs) looked outstanding, boxing his way to a one-sided twelve-round unanimous decision victory over Craig Richards (18-4-1, 11 KOs). Hutchinson used movement and odd punching angles to dominate the 34-year-old Richards the entire fight.
In the tenth, Hutchinson has Richards in trouble after unloading a flurry of shots while he was against the ropes. The referee could have called it a knockdown because the ropes held Richards up while he was getting shelled nonstop with shots by Hutchinson. The judges scores were 116-112, 117-111, and 119-109.
Hutchinson beat Richards much easier than Dmitry Bivol had years ago, and he showed that he could be a future world champion in the light heavyweight division with this performance.
