Krzysztof Glowacki (31-1, 19 KOs) showed off his impressive punching power in beating Maksim Vlasov (44-3, 25 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the interim World Boxing Organization cruiserweight title in their WBSS quarterfinal fight at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. The fight was streamed on DAZN.
The fight wasn’t hard to score. Glowacki knocked Vlasov down in round 3, and had him hurt on several occasions during the fight. The scores were 118-110, 117-110 and 115-112.
Vlasov fought better in the last four rounds after Glowacki, 32, tired and lost power on his shots, but he still didn’t do well enough to get the victory.
In round 1, Glowacki had Vlasov staggering after hitting him with a low blow and then a right hand. Vlasov was looking at the referee to see if he would do something about it. While Vlasov was distracted, Glowacki took advantage of the situation by hitting him. It looked bad. The referee was oblivious to what had just happened, so he let it slide. It wasn’t a good deal.
The southpaw Glowacki’s performance was the best on the night. He looked great compared to the off performance from Mairis Briedis in the co-feature bout. Glowacki left no doubt who the better fighter was of the two.
In the other World Boxing Super Series quarterfinal on the card, Mairis Briedis (26-1, 18 KOs) defeated Noel Mikaelian (24-2, 10 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant World Boxing Council Diamond title. Briedis now advanced to the semifinal of the WBSS tournament to face the 32-year-old Glowacki. The judges score the fight as follows: 116-110, 115-111, 115-112. Mikaelian looked like the sure winner.
Briedis, 33, was beaten to the punch the entire fight, and he got the worst of it. The referee took a point off from Mikaelian for a punch to the back of Briedis’ head in the 4th. In the 10th, the referee took a point off from Briedis for holding and hitting. The referee didn’t give a warning to Briedis before taking the point off.
Briedis came into the fight as the #1 seed in the WBSS cruiserweight tournament based on how well he had performed earlier in the year in giving Oleksander Usyk huge problems in the semifinal of WBSS 1 in Latvia. However, Briedis didn’t looked confused and depleted against the younger 28-year-old Mikaelian the entire fight. Briedis didn’t know how to deal with the 6’3″ Mikaelian’s jabs, right hands and left hooks that he kept hitting him with the entire fight.
The win for Breidis somehow tainted the fight. Mikaelian looked so much better. It was disappointing to see the fighter lose in one of his performances of his career.
