As good as Oleksandr Usyk’s extremely narrow win over Mairis Briedis was on the other side of the bracket, this one might be better. Murat Gassiev and Yunier Dorticos are action oriented fights with excellent power. Whoever joins Usyk in the finals is certainly going to have to earn it in this one. We all should win for getting to watch it happen.
I don’t think it is too early to start calling the World Boxing Super Series a success in terms of bringing quality in ring action in an easily digestible format. It is easy and probably accurate to criticize the tournament and its organizers for being unable to secure the all important American television deal, but that is a separate issue. They have delivered on the fights. Last weekend’s extremely high level and entertaining meeting between Oleksandr Usyk and Mairis Briedis was probably only the appetizer too.
Murat Gassiev (25-0, 18 KOs) first appeared on US television with a ninth round stoppage win over Felix Cora Jr in early 2015. After some controversy rendered his battle of unbeatens fight with Isiah Thomas a no contest due to a shot after the bell, Gassiev redeemed himself with a first round demolition of Jordan Shimmel about a year after the Cora fight. This was his launching pad and the Russian got to go home to meet unified titleholder and fellow countryman Denis Lebedev. This was an interesting fight with a wide range of scores coming in from both media and internet fan reaction, but in the end Murat Gassiev had his hand raised by split decision. Most recently the Russian power puncher defended his title by third round stoppage against former titleholder Krzysztof Wlodarczyk in the first round of the World Boxing Super series.
Cuban contender Yunier Dorticos (22-0, 21 KOs) hasn’t had the same level of American exposure as Gassiev has, but he did win one hell of a fight last May in France against Youri Kalenga. That fight was an all out war and one of the better battles of 2016. Dorticos won his first round matchup in the tournament by second round knockout of powerful but limited Russian Dmitry Kudryashov. Strangely, it was a 2014 fight with a blown up and shot Edison Miranda that keeps Dorticos’s record from having a perfect knockout percentage.
Stylistically, this is a great fight. Gassiev can sometimes be a little inactive in the ring, but he loads up so powerfully when he attacks that his contests are never boring. Dorticos is not your typical technique first Cuban, though he does have some of those expected skills. Instead, Yunier likes to respond to fire with even bigger fire of his own. I don’t see how this is anything but a fantastic fight.
One downer that I must bring up is the title situation here. Unfortunately, even the generally level headed boxing media is billing this as a unification fight. I get why they are doing this, but it isn’t. When Murat Gassiev beat Denis Lebedev, he should have won both the IBF and the WBA belts. That didn’t happen as the WBA strap was not on the line due to ridiculous boxing politics. Lebedev still holds the “super” edition of that belt. Now, the WBA likes to greedily create multiple belts in each division. Yunier Dorticos holds the “regular” edition and is defending it here, but the regular belt is not a world title when a super belt is present in the same division. His belt is not legitimate and therefore this is not a unification fight. Nor will this tournament produce a unified champion unless Lebedev somehow loses his belt by being stripped or retiring prior to the World Boxing Super Series’s conclusion.
This card is happening in Russia and will take place around 1 PM Eastern time. Its undercard is better than the others of these WBSS cards too. Maksim Vlasov and Olanrewaju Durodola are both ranked in my top 25 at cruiserweight and are meeting. The show also features a WBO lightweight title elimator between Roman Andreev and Craig Evans as well as appearances by fighters you should know in Fedor Chudinov and Mikhail Aloyan. These WBSS shows have always had intriguing main events, but for once this one has an undercard worth watching too.
