By: Ken Hissner
At the Luzhniki Arena in Moscow Monday American heavyweight Amir “Harcore” Mansour and Sergey Kuzmin battled into the third round when a clash of heads ended the bout. Italian referee Massimino Barrvecchio stopped the bout at 2:45 of the round.
Both fighters went to their corners and ring physicians wouldn’t allow the bout to continue. Mansour had a nasty cut over his right eye and Kuzmin was cut on the forehead. They were fighting for the WBC International title which still remains vacant.
Mansour, 23-2-1 (16), a southpaw, who hasn’t fought since March of 2017 has pleaded to his manager Joe Hand, Sr. to get him a bout. In that last fight Mansour defeated former contender Travis “My Time” Kauffman, 31-1, in the latter’s hometown of Reading, PA, by decision to capture the vacant USA PA State title and the vacant WBC United States (USNBC) title. “I have seven belts and can’t get a title fight,” said Mansour. He is ranked No. 15 in the WBO ratings where New Zealand’s Joe Parker is champion.
The Faller Kuzmin, 11-0-2 (8) is a former Russian amateur champion and currently holds the WBC Eurasia Pacific Boxing Council title. He has defeated four Americans in his eleven previous bouts. The last was stopping Malcolm Tann, 24-4, in June in Ontario, Canada. He has fought four of his bouts in the United States so possible a rematch could be held in the US or not than back to Russia if the promoter World of Boxing Promotions does the return bout.
Mansour has had the kind of disappointment of seeing two of his previous opponents prior to the Kauffman match get world title fights. In October of 2015 he was held to a disputed split decision draw against Gerald Washington, 16-0, who went onto fight Deontay Wilder in February of 2017 ending in defeat.
The other opponent was Dominic Breazeale, 16-0, in January of 2016 when Mansour put a beating on Breazeale dropping him in the third round in sweeping the first four rounds and winning the fifth when he suffered a bout ending cut in his tongue requiring 36 stitches. His corner man Danny Davis said “I have never seen so much blood coming from a fighter’s mouth back in the dressing room. Along with Davis Calvin Davis works the corner.
The judges selected for this bout were Predrag Aleksic from Montenegro and from Belgium Daniel Van de Wield and Ukranian Olena Pobyvailo who also resides in Belgium.
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