Alexander Povetkin (32-1, 23 KOs) rather easily defeated a very fragile looking fringe contender Andriy Rudenko (31-3, 19 KOs) by 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night at the Luzhniki Concert Hall in Moscow, Russia. The fight was almost stopped in the 1st round after Povetkin appeared to injure Rudenko and his neck with a rabbit shot.
Rudenko’s neck injury would continue to give him problems for the remainder of the fight.
The judges scores were 120-109, 120-108, 120-108. Boxing 247 scored it 12 rounds to 0 in favor of Povetkin. It was a fun fight to watch at times. Povetkin has a lot of different weapons he showed off throughout the contest.
The fight resembled more of a sparring match than an actual contest, as it looked at times like Povetkin, 38, was taking it easy on the Ukrainian Rudenko due to his neck problems. One got the sense that Povetkin could have ended the fight at any time if he had jumped on Rudenko and started hammering him with blow. It would have looked bad if the fight had ended early due to a neck injury. It’s good that Povetkin didn’t really go after Rudenko after the fight resumed in the 1st round, because he clearly would have stopped him.
With the win, Povetkin captured the vacant WBA Inter-Continental and WBO International heavyweight straps.
All in all, it was a decent performance by Povetkin. The fight wasn’t much to watch. Povetkin was landing good uppercuts and hooks in each round, but Rudenko showed a great chin in taking the blows. For his part, Rudenko would land one big shot in every round. His problem was he didn’t have the punching power to hurt Povetkin. Had it been someone like Wladimir Klitschko or Anthony Joshua throwing those power shots, Povetkin would have had problems. Rudenko, 6’0″, looked like a cruiserweight rather than a heavyweight. He’s really undersized for the heavyweight division, and so is Povetkin. These guys were evenly matched in terms of size. Povetkin wants to fight Joshua, but I think it would be a mismatch. Joshua, 6’6″, has far too much size and youth for Povetkin.