MONTREAL – Arthur Biyarslanov made the leap from prospect to contender on Thursday night, defeating former world titleholder Sergey Lipinets by unanimous decision at Casino de Montreal.
The scores were 97-92, 99-90, 96-93, all in favor of the 20-0 (16 KOs) Biyarslanov, a Russia-born, Toronto-raised southpaw signed to Eye of the Tiger Management, which promoted Thursday’s event.
The 30-year-old Biyarslanov, a 2016 Olympian, used his movement and jab to keep the aggressive Lipinets, 18-5-1 (13 KOs), off balance in the early going. Lipinets began to press the action more in the second round, landing straight right hands to the body. Matters began to turn dire for Lipinets early as a Hasim Rahman-esque hematoma opened up above his left eye. With a new target to land on, Biyarslanov hurt Lipinets in the third round, rocking him with a counter right hook that momentarily froze the 36-year-old. Lipinets survived that moment, but was ruled down later in the round after he swung and missed and fell off balance, with a body shot helping Lipinets complete the trip.
As the fight wore on, Biyarslanov’s conditioning was tested like never before in the pros, as Lipinets continued to press forward with a high guard, firing body shots in the seventh. That approach gave Biyarslanov more opportunities to counter, which he accepted, landing a straight left through the guard that again hurt Lipinets. A cut opened up on Lipinets’ scalp later in the round, but it wasn’t until the eighth that it opened up more drastically, with blood pouring down his face for the remainder of the fight. Lipinets never relented, swinging away with uppercuts, but, with his left eye completely swollen shut, he was unable to defend against right hooks.
The old champion showed he still had some fight in him as he rocked Biyarslanov with an overhand right in the final round. After knocking out Biyarslanov’s mouthpiece, Lipinets landed a series of overhand rights that had the unbeaten hometown fighter in some difficulty, which Biyarslanov responded to by fighting his way to the bell.
Lipinets, a former IBF junior welterweight belt holder, has now lost three of his past four fights, including a stoppage defeat to Adam Azim in February in his most recent bout.
Biyarslanov entered the fight rated No. 7 by the WBC and No. 9 by the IBF at 140lbs.
In the briefest fight of the undercard, Mehmet Unal scored his second straight first-round knockout, dropping Latvia’s durable Ralfs Vilcans with an overhand right to end the light heavyweight fight just 2 minutes and 44 seconds into the first.
Unal, 14-0 (12 KOs), a Montreal resident who was born in Turkey, dropped Vilcans, 18-3 (7 KOs), with an overhand right. The resulting fall may have injured Vilcans’ right leg, which bent back violently on the way down, leaving him hobbling back to the corner afterwards.
Unal, 32, became the first fighter to stop Vilcans, who had gone the distance with Anthony Yarde and Jacob Bank in his previous defeats.
In a battle of unbeaten Canadian lightweights, Logan Clouthier, 7-0 (4 KOs), made good use of his superior boxing technique to outbox all-pressure fighter Thomas Chabot, 11-1 (8 KOs), en route to a unanimous decision win. Two judges scored the fight 78-72, while the third had it 79-71, all for the Vancouver-based Clouthier.
It was clear early on that Clouthier had the right idea for dealing with the southpaw Chabot, as his straight right hands continuously found the target on his squared-up opponent. The crowd broke out in chants of “Chabot! Chabot!” to will on the Thetford Mines fighter, to which Clouthier responded by waving his arms to bring on more cheers. Chabot adjusted in the second round by turning the heat up even further as blood emerged on Clouthier’s right eye, which Chabot’s corner urged their fighter to target. The punches that Clouthier couldn’t seem to miss with early on began to move Chabot by the fourth round, as he backed up for the first time in the fight.
The urgency of the situation began to kick up another notch in the fifth as Clouthier found the weakness in Chabot’s armor, dropping him twice with left hooks to the body. Despite having been down three previous times as a professional, Chabot did not clinch when in trouble, electing instead to try to fight his way out of trouble.
The fifth-round offensive explosion appeared to take something out of Clouthier, who was reduced to arm-punching in the sixth and was outworked by Chabot. That pattern continued into the seventh, as Clouthier appeared to be hunting for that same body shot that dropped Chabot earlier, causing him to move away from his boxing strategy. With the finish line in sight, both fighters emptied the gas tank, as Clouthier’s superior footwork created angles that kept the flat-footed Chabot turning and unable to get set to punch.
Clouthier, a promotional free agent who is trained by Jonathan Quinit, was fighting as a junior lightweight, but he says he would prefer to take future fights at 126lbs.
Kicking off the card, Erik Israyelyan, 3-0 (2 KOs), won a split decision over Dylan Schroeder, 6-1 (4 KOs), in a four-round battle of unbeaten junior lightweights. Two judges scored the fight for the Montreal-based Armenian Israyelyan, 40-36 and 39-37, while the third had it 39-37 the other way for Schroeder, a Calgary resident who was born in Pakistan.
In welterweight action, Christopher Guerrero outclassed Argentina's Williams Andres Herrera en route to a unanimous decision win in their 10-round fight. The scores were 97-93, 99-91, 98-92, all for the sharp-shooting Guerrero, who used his combination punching and subtle head movement to outpoint the brawling Herrera.
The fight offered an interesting opportunity for Guerrero, 16-0 (9 KOs), to measure himself against other young fighters around his weight, as Herrera had lost to top British fighters Paddy Donovan and Pat McCormack.
Herrera dropped to 17-5 (7 KOs) with the defeat.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
