Boxing
DAZN News Daily Round-Up - Benavidez rival suffers at Zuffa, Usyk to get surprise opponent, and Kelly gets called out
Barrios vs Garcia only on DAZN PPV - Feb 21
A new week in boxing is here. Let's look at the news dominating the headlines on Monday, February 2.
Zuffa Boxing 2 delivers
Oleksandr Gvozdyk’s fading world title hopes were completely extinguished when he was stopped on the latest Zuffa Boxing show by the relentless Radivoje Kalajdzic in Las Vegas.
The former world champion, a former opponent of Artur Beterbiev and David Benavidez, made an excellent start against Kalajdzic after dropping him twice, but a disastrous round seven saw Gvozdyk dropped twice before the bout was over.
The entertaining affair lit up the show, but it is Kalajdzic who will now push on to pursue a bigger fight at 175lbs.
In other results, Sergi Bohachuk was pushed hard by Radzhab Butaev, but managed to do enough to secure a split decision win.
Jose Valenzuela was a big winner at lightweight as he outclassed Diego Nunez over ten rounds.
The RingUsyk to face kickboxer?
Is Oleksandr Usyk heading towards a fight with kickboxing champion, Rico Verhoeven?
In recent weeks, it appeared that current heavyweight ruler was destined to face Deontay Wilder, but that fight is no longer in the works after the American agreed to face Derek Chisora in April.
With Usyk unlikely to face Fabio Wardley in a unification battle, could his next fight be attached with plenty of intrigue similar to recent fights taken on by his former rivals, Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.
Joshua recently faced Jake Paul and Fury has history with former UFC champion, Francis Ngannou, but is Usyk about to take a similar path?
Turki Alalshikh had a busy weekend staging Teofimo Lopez vs Shakur Stevenson in New York City, but he still found time to post on social media that he would like to see Usyk face Verhoeven.
World champion targets Kelly
Josh Kelly is the new IBF super-welterweight champion, and the Sunderland man is already in demand.
Kelly climbed off the floor this past weekend to edge past Bakhram Murtazaliev via majority decision, and he is immediately targeting the biggest fights at 154lbs.
One of those battles could come against Jaron Ennis or Vergil Ortiz, who are both in talks to fight each other, but what about Xander Zayas?
The Puerto Rican star unified the division the same night as Kelly, as he added Abass Baraou’s WBA belt to his own WBO title with a split decision win.
“Kelly just won tonight. If he wants to get it on by the summer, I would like to invite him to Puerto Rico or New York,” said Zayas after his win.
For years, Kelly has struggled to nail down big opportunities, now with a world title around his waist, he has never been more in demand.
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