Senchenko beats Nuzhnenko, now let's finish off the bowl of rancid alphabet soup!

As many of you are well aware, last weekend, Vyacheslav Senchenko fought Yuriy Nuzhnenko in a battle of marginally-untested unbeatens in Ukraine. Both fighters, incidentally, hail from and live in Ukraine. The fight was for Nuzhnenko's WBA Welterweight Ordinary World Title. Senchenko, despite only having a small height and reach advantage, controlled the fight expertly from the outside behind an accurate, well-timed rain of jabs. Nuzhnenko, usually a highly controlled and economical technician himself tried to force a brawl on the inside and failed to make a dent in Senchenko or score very effectively in close quarters as Senchenko squashed his attack and began to counter and hurt Nuzhnenko as the title-holder reached more and more, sacrificing his footwork and balance, to try to land something significant to change the complexion of the fight. Nuzhnenko came up short awkwardly playing the pressure fighter and Senchenko took a well-deserved decision by margins of 116-112 on two scorecards and 118-110 on the third. I saw the fight a lot more like a 118-110 drubbing. Nuzhnenko just didn't have an answer for anything he was getting hit with and he has been replaced as a fringe operator titleholder who we will likely never see on the world stage.

For some time I watched Nuzhnenko toil in relative obscurity around Russia, Ukraine and Europe. He was an excellent fighter, I thought, very well seasoned, a cool operator, a smart boxer who knew when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em and when to unleash Hell. He was quick and sharp. But Yuriy passed his athletic peak without ever really getting a crack at top fighters, world class guys and so he remained (and remains) something of an unknown quantity. His best victories were over an aged Maxim Nesterenko, then unbeaten Farkhad Bakirov and another old man in the once excellent Frederic Klose. Most fighters at the top of the welterweight division had little incentive to fight Nuzhnenko...Antonio Margarito held the bigger, badder, more legitimate version of the WBA belt and now Shane Mosley has it. There is every reason to suspect that Mosley would never have, for any reason, even consider fighting Nuzhnenko...and I understand why: potentially dangerous, low-profile opponent to fight for small-time money in a fight that is a hard sell to television...where's the incentive?

The same now goes for Senchenko.

Having also watched Senchenko for a few years now, I am more impressed with him than I ever was with Nuzhnenko. Senchenko is not extremely tall for the division--5'10"--but he fights tall, has excellent balance and knows how to place the jab and time it to work against the momentum of an aggressive opponent. He throws his hardest shots without really seeming to sacrifice his balance or posture. Senchenko has decent power in both hands and, unlike Nuzhnenko, goes looking smartly for the knockout when it is there. Senchenko has excellent stamina, an iron beard and always seems in top shape.

I would like to see some of these fighters from the former Soviet Union on the world stage, even for a moment. I like Senchenko, but I would be more than happy to accept it if he simply couldn't maintain his style and poise against the top of the division. It is entirely possible. I would just like to see it. I know the reasons (and there are many) why these fighters don't often cross the long miles to get shots at internationally proven fighters. But there are guys, Nuzhnenko for years and now Senchenko taking his place, who look good enough to hold their own at the top, but might never get a shot to prove it. The tragic up-and-down career of the terrifically talented Roman Karmazin is another, maybe more well known, example of this type of thing.

Really, I suppose I am curious...what did (or do) you all think of Nuzhnenko?

What do you think of Senchenko?

What obscure or internationally unproven former Soviet bloc fighters are you watching?

Denis Inkin's recent decision loss to Karoly Balzsay seems another apt comparison to me. I think Balzsay looked very much a fast, sharp, slick world class operator against Inkin, but I am unsure of saying any such thing until I see Balzsay do that same kind of work against an internationally proven opponent. What do you think?

 

thanks for the post, i was going to ask what the odds were going into the fight. i assumeed nuzhnenko was the favorite, but i wasn't sure and hadn't checked it anywhere.

i'll be eager to see what senchenko can do from this point on.