Local favorite and former amateur star Mikhail “Misha” Aloyan (4-1) had a pretty terrible opening round against defending titleholder Zolani Tete (28-3, 21 KOs). He was soundly outclassed and forced to take a count after putting his glove down following a cuffing right hook. His pedigree was able to show slowly over time though. He still lost the second, but was competitive in the third and probably won the fourth after figuring out how to get inside. Tete’s jab was still trouble, but his power shots were no longer really landing.
That jab and the distance it created was the basic story of the fight the rest of the way. It wasn’t exciting, but when Zolani’s jab was working the proper distance was kept and he controlled the rounds without needing to do much else. A round here and there would bring enough moments where Aloyan got in and landed shots while Tete only worked his jab. Maybe Misha could have had the round scored for him in those, but they were few and far in between.
Late in the fight both men were deducted points, both rather abruptly. Tete used his forearm and elbow to push off to get his penalty while Aloyan lost his point for holding. I had Tete winning this 116-108, which was nine rounds to three after factoring in the knockdowns and deductions. The official scores came back closer at 114-111 twice and a 114-110, but the right man got the decision in the end.
The cruiserweight tournament opener was a frustrating watch too, maybe even more so than the main event. It was clear that the more talented and capable fighter was Andrew Tabiti (17-0, 13 KOs), but Ruslan Fayfer (23-1, 16 KOs) was able to win a lot of rounds that he frankly shouldn’t have been able to thanks to Tabiti’s unwillingness to consistently move his hands. Furthermore, Fayfer’s crude shots pretty much always resulted with him lunging in and initiating an ugly clinch. Worst of all, far too many of these clinches began with reckless if not flagrant headbutts that went unwarned all night. It was a poorly officiated contest and a difficult fight to make it through from an entertainment perspective. On my card it took a late collapse in the championship round from the Russian’s energy level plus a better late than never point deduction for his holding that enabled Tabiti to take the fight on my card.
In the end I scored it 115-112 for Andrew Tabiti, but it didn’t really feel like a win given how much he struggled with a really basic fighter. There have been times that the American has looked like a future titleholder at 200 lbs. This wasn’t necessarily the case this afternoon in Russia.
