By Alexey Sukachev
Moscow, Russia - In a sad moment for some and a joyous moment for the others, former kickboxing world champion Alexey Papin (9-0, 8 KOs) has brutally knocked out former prospect turned stepping stone - Ismayl Sillakh (25-5, 19 KOs) - at 2:07 of the first.
Papin rocked Sillakh with a right hand and landed several big shots in the corner.
Referee Yuri Koptsev was late to intervene leading to a very damaging kayo as the Ukrainian was down for several minutes.
Sillakh, only 32 years of age, has now lost three of his last five fights. He was coming off a June ten round decision loss to Polish cruiserweight contender Mateusz Masternak.
After suffering a vicious two round knockout loss at the hands of light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in November 2013, Sillakh moved up to cruiserweight and made his debut in the division nearly two years later in June 2015.
He picked up two wins before getting knocked out in three by Maxim Vlasov last June. And then got two more wins before the Masternak defeat.
Sillakh never fully recovered after getting knocked out by Denis Grachev in 2012, in what was considered to be a huge upset at the time.
Rising cruiserweight Alexey Egorov (4-0, 3 KOs) acquired a vacant Russian national title with a four-round beatdown of Andrey Knyazev (16-6, 9 KOs).
Knyazev never got on track and was dominated by a better fighter. Egorov dropped his foe down with a counter right cross and finished him off at 0:51 of the fourth.
Featherweight Evgueny Smirnov moved up to 11-0, 2 KOs, with a much closer-than-scored unanimous decision over rugged Filipino Jhon Ghemino (16-10-1, 7 KOs). Smirnov outboxed his opponent but Ghemino gave him fits with his toughness and durability. Unrealistic scores were identical: 100-90 - for Smirnov.
IBO female light welterweight champion Svetlana Kulakova (12-0-2, 1 KO) barely retained her title with a close draw versus Kenyan challenger Judy Waguthy (15-7-5, 4 KOs).