Australian heavyweight Lucas Browne (24-0, 21 KOs) showed that he’s not someone you take lightly at any point in his fights, as he came back late in this fight to stop WBA “regular” heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (34-3-1, 21 KOs) by a 10th round knockout to win his WBA belt at the Colosseum Sport Hall in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
Chagaev, 37, showed little respect for Browne’s punching power in the fight. He was constantly putting pressure on the bigger, stronger and slightly younger 36-year-old Browne. Chagaev made a mistake of backing Browne to the corner in the 10th, resulting in the big Australian reaching back and hammering him with a huge right hand that sent Chagaev straight to the canvas. The punch was so power that even when Chagaev got to his feet, he was unsteady unable to protect himself or fight back. Referee Stanley Christodoulou wasn’t going to take any chances by letting the fight continue.
Browne then throw a flurry of shots that caused the referee to stop the fight. Chagaev was still on his feet at the time of the stoppage, but he wasn’t fighting back. It was one-way traffic. If the fight hadn’t been stopped when it did, the only thing that would have stopped Browne from throwing his nonstop punches would be for him to exhaust himself. I don’t think he was going to do that though. Browne would have spent the rest round flurrying on Chagaev with head shots if not for the referee doing the right thing and stopping it when he did.
Browne jabbed and moved during the earlier rounds, as he chose to stay on the outside rather than stand in front of the hard hitting Chagaev. It might have worked better for Browne to be stationary in this fight because he was the bigger, stronger and the better skilled of the two. However, he showed Chagaev a little too much respect, and this led to the fight lasting longer than it might have otherwise lasted.
Browne was knocked down in the 6th round from a left hand from Chagaev. He also cut in the round by one of Chagaev’s. Browne was hit by some nice punches from Chagaev when he was attempting to finish him off.
Other action on Saturday’s card in Grozny:
Ali Funeka SD 12 Viskhan Murzabekov
Edmund Gerber TKO 2 Brian Minto
Umar Salamov TKO 2 Joey Vegas
Apti Davtaev TKO 1 Davit Gorgiladze
Movsur Yusupov KO 2 Karama Nyilawila
Islam Edisultanov KO 1 Patrick Atuhairwe
Ramzan Baysarov TKO 5 Hamza Sempewo
Dzhabrail Muzaev TKO 1 Mustafa Katende
Bulat Beshiev UD 4 Feruz Yuldashev