NEW YORK – In just his second fight in eight years, Avtandil Khurtsidze was held to a majority draw against late-replacement spoiler Andres Martinez on Saturday.
One judge scored the fight in favor of Khurtsidze, 59-55, while the other two had it even at 57-57. Khurtsidze, a 45-year-old from Brooklyn, saw his record move to 34-2-3 (23 KOs), while Martinez, a 31-year-old from Equatorial Guinea, proved to be better than his 6-4-1 (3 KOs) record.
The six-round fight was part of the Danny Garcia-Danny Gonzalez undercard here at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The bout was a back-and-forth affair from the opening round, as the shorter Khurtsidze relied on slipping and countering against the much taller Martinez, who landed effectively from the outside but held any time the fighters got too close.
Khurtsidze, originally from Georgia, won the WBO interim middleweight title in 2017 when he stopped Tommy Langford in five rounds, but he saw his career derailed in 2018 when he was convicted of racketeering and fraud. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was granted early release in 2021.
Martinez was in action just a month ago, defeating popular New York ticket-seller Nadim Salloum by split decision.
Khurtsidze was a late addition to the card, having replaced his gym mate Richard Commey after Commey withdrew from his fight with Nahir Albright.
Former National Golden Gloves champion Quincey Williams scored an easy second-round knockout in his first eight-round bout, stopping Christopher Rodriguez in two rounds of their welterweight fight.
After establishing that he could hit the southpaw Rodriguez whenever he wanted to, Williams, 6-0 (6 KOs), took a step back and invited Rodriguez to come forward. That strategy paid off as Williams landed a sharp right hand counter that deposited him hard on the canvas at the bell to end the first. Rodriguez beat the count, but it was already open season for Williams, who promptly stunned his opponent with a right hand on the chin the following round. After a merciless assault in the corner that popped Rodriguez’s head back repeatedly, referee Eric Dali stopped the fight at the 1-minute, 31-seconds mark.
Rodriguez, 13-2-1 (11 KOs), of Miami, lost for the second time in a row.
Williams, 22, of Washington D.C., is signed to Swift Promotions and was a decorated amateur, winning gold at the 2021 Junior Pan American Games and the 2022 National Golden Gloves.
In an entertaining junior middleweight fight, Cristian Cangelosi, 12-0 (5 KOs), from Brooklyn by way of Palermo, Sicily, Italy, won a unanimous decision over Argentina’s Victoriano Santillan, 13-9-2 (8 KOs). The scores were 79-73, 77-75 and 78-74.
In earlier bouts, Elijah “Macho” Gonzalez improved to 3-0 (2 KOs) with a four-round decision over Jason Chavez, 0-2-1, in a welterweight fight; Bronx-based super middleweight Jahanzeb Rizwan won his pro debut with a second-round stoppage of Travon Millage; and Newark's Zahir Abdus-Salaam won his pro debut with a four-round unanimous decision over Eduardo Perez de la Paz in a middleweight fight.
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.
