By Andrey Krikunov

Izhevsk held the night of professional boxing titled "The Defenders of the Motherland" (as February 23 is the Day of Armed Services in Russia). It the main fights of the evening, Russian boxers Denis Lebedev and Alexander Bakhtin pulled out big wins.

WBO Inter-Continental cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev (20-0, 15 КОs), before the bou,t acknowledged the speed and the skills of his opponent Mexican Ignacio Esparza (16-2, 12 КОs). The only defeat in Esparza’s record came last year when he lost to Enad Licina in Germany by decision.

However Lebedev didn’t waste time and Mexican found himself on the canvas after the left cross in the very first round. In the fourth round Russian ended the fight by knocking Esparza out with the good combination.

It seemed that bantamweight Alexander Bakhtin (25-0, 11 КОs) would follow Lebedev’s example and the audience would be treated to an exciting but short bout. At the end of the first round his opponent Kenyan Nick Otieno (21-5, 9 КОs) missed and got hit with a powerful counter-attack punch from Bakhtin and was knocked down. However the fight dragged on.

Otieno tried to attack, but due to inferior technique he constantly took punches from the Russian. Bakhtin convincingly won each round though wasn’t able to finish the bout early. In the end the judges gave unanimous decision in this WBC bantamweight title eliminator to Alexander Bakhtin - 120:108, 120:107 (twice).