(Montreal) No matter what the judges were going to say at the end of the 10 rounds between Erik Bazinyan and Shakeel Phinn on Thursday, at the Cabaret du Casino de Montréal, Bazinyan had lost. Ranked among the top seven contenders from the four main sanctioning bodies, Marc Ramsay’s protégé had to convincingly and unequivocally beat unranked Phinn.
Published at 11:20 p.m.
Frédéric Daigle
The Canadian Press
That’s not at all what happened.
The judges saw a draw. Phinn (26-3-2, 17 KOs) won the favor of Pasquale Procopio 97-93 and Bazinyan (32-0-1, 23 KOs), that of Jack Woodburn 96-94. The 95-95 card Nicolas Esnault settled the question.
This is a very ugly result for the Bazinyan clan, who nevertheless retains their North American Boxing Federation (NABF) super-middleweight belt, but cannot get their hands on that of the World Boxing Association (WBA). Continental North America.
His rankings though? It will be worth seeing.
Bazinyan is ranked third in the WBA, World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Organization (WBO), as well as seventh in the International Boxing Federation (IBF) for the moment.
After a very close start to the fight, Phinn, under the recommendations of his corner, sought to enter more into Bazinyan’s bubble. It functioned.
Bazinyan was shaken by several power combinations from Brossardois. While he said this week that he was in a league of his own, Bazinyan did not have the upper hand over Phinn on Thursday night.
After Bazinyan was able to bounce back in the seventh by keeping Phinn at bay and landing better shots, he nearly suffered a first setback in the next two.
Phinn was dominant in the eighth and ninth. In the ninth, he served a combination of some 10 shots in a row while the Laval resident was caught in a corner. If the opposite had happened, one wonders if referee Martin Forest would not have stopped the fight.
Completely drained after this ninth spent throwing all the shots in his arsenal, Phinn had a worse 10ea round which was nevertheless very close.
It remains to be seen whether the Bazinyan clan will agree to a rematch with Phinn, who “would be ready [vendredi] morning,” he swore.
