By Bill "Two Scoops" Emes
Ruslan "Siberian Rocky" Provodnikov (23-3, 16KOs) is stunned that undefeated Chris Algieri (20-0, 8KOs) pulled off the biggest win of his career on Saturday night, when he got up from two knockdowns in the first round and won a twelve round split decision to capture the WBO junior welterweight championship at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Despite the disastrous start, two judges saw Algieri as the winner with identical scores of 114-112. The third judge had it 117-109 for Provodinkov.
Provodnikov is open to a rematch, but prefers a venue in Las Vegas. He felt Algieri didn't do much to deserve the decision, simply running all night and throwing a lot of jabs.
''I think that you guys can be the judges,'' Provodinkov said through manager Vadim Kornilov. ''I haven't seen the fight yet to make a judgment on the way it went, but to me it feels like he was running all night and just jabbing. You can see the way I look and you saw the way he looks, and to me I don't see how you can win the fight just running all day.
''In my view power punches win fights and he outjabbed us in that area, but power punches it was a thousand to one. We landed most of the shots and that's why I thought we deserved the fight.''
