Results from Lithuania: Iliev Wins, Conobeev is Upset

By Alexey Sukachev

Lithuania can hardly be named a hotbed of pro boxing. There were just 63 boxing events of various (basically very low) magnitude that have been held in the country over the course of the last twenty-five years.

One of those, a bigger one, took place this past Friday at the Comfort hotel in Vilnius, Lithuanian capital, under Jaroslavas Mackevicius (of JM Promotons) promotion.

There were eleven fights, featuring local and Latvian journeymen in local rumblings, and also two fights with undefeated prospects taking their parts in.

Undefeated junior middleweight Ismail Iliev, 23, improved to 9-0-1, with 2 KOs, with the injury-induced fifth-round stoppage of veteran Bosnian Nico Salzmann AKA Nijaz Salkic.

Scores at the time of stoppage were 40-36, 40-36, and 39-37 – all for Iliev, who had a banner year in the past, with wins over 27-12-3 Oscar Roberto Medina and 42-3 Sergey Gulyakevich. Salzmann, 33, has been stopped for the first time in his career and drops down to 17-9-3, 3 KOs.

In a minor upset, previously undefeated Moldavian light middleweight Igor Conobeev was stopped in three by under 1.000 22-year old Georgian Davit Ribakoni, who is now 14-14-5, with a symmetric record of five stoppage losses and five stoppage wins.

Conobeev, 29, who was fighting for the first time in over six years, drops down to 6-1, 1 KO.