By Mark Vester
It was a night filled with struggling performances at the Main Street Armory in Rochester, New York. Earlier in the week, Hasim Rahman's promotor Top Rank sent out a media release that was screaming for the former two-time heavyweight champion to rack up an impressive win.
Rahman (41-6-2, 33KOs), who weighed in for the fight at a career high 261-pounds, won the fight but was far from impressive in his unanimous decision win over Taurus Sykes (25-3-1, 7KOs).
The performance by Rahman was so sluggish that it made the fight appear very close. Sykes was never out of the fight. Even after he lost a point for a low blow in the ninth round, and was later knocked down in the same round, he managed to return some fire in the tenth and final round to rock Rahman.
The scores were 95-93, 99-90 and 97-91. Rahman is rumored to be facing unbeaten "Baby" Joe Mesi near the end of the year.
In the co feature, Almazvek "Kid Diamond" Raimkulov (25-1-1, 14KOs) managed to pull out a twelve round split decision over Miguel Angel Huerta (24-8-1, 17KOs) in a fight that many ringside observers saw for Huerta.
Huerta was hurting Diamond with counter punches all night long and busting up his face with two-fisted punishment. A counter left dropped Diamond on the seat of his pants in the eleventh round. Huerta tried closing the show in the twelfth round, but Diamond managed to escape the danger. When the sound of the final bell was heard, most were sure of a Huerta win, but a shocked crowd heard the opposite.
The scores were 114-113 Diamond, 114-113 Diamond and 116-111 for Huerta.
Undefeated super middleweight prospect Donovan George (14-0-1, 12KOs) also saw action as he barely broke a sweat by crushing overmatched Cory Phelps (11-2, 7KOs) in less than a minute of the first round.