Review by AllTheBestFights.com: 2015-11-04, crazy fight with some wild and tough exchanges and a spectacular finish: Rakhim Chakhkiev vs Ola Afolabi is one of the best boxing fights of the year 2015 and it gets four stars!The 2008 Olympic heavyweight gold medalist Rakhim Chakhkiev entered this fight with a boxing record of 24-1-0 (18 KOs=75%) and he is ranked as the No.7 cruiserweight in the world (currently the #1 in this division is Grigory Drozd). He suffered his only loss in 2013, against Krzysztof Wlodarczyk (=Wlodarczyk vs Chakhkiev) but then he has won eight consecutive bouts beating Hamilton Ventura in his last one (=Chakhkiev vs Ventura).
His opponent, Ola Afolabi, has an official record of 21-4-4 (10 knockouts) and he entered as the No.24 in the same weight class but he comes off the loss against Victor Emilio Ramirez (=Afolabi vs Ramirez). Chakhkiev vs Afolabi is valid for the IBO World cruiserweight title (Chakhkiev’s first defense); undercard of Alexander Povetkin vs Mariusz Wach. Watch the video and rate this fight!
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Date: 2015-11-04
Where: Basket-Hall Arena, Kazan, Russia
Division: cruiserweight (200 lbs, 90.7 kg)
Title: IBO World cruiserweight title
Chakhkiev’s previous fight: Rakhim Chakhkiev vs Hamilton Ventura
Afolabi’s previous fight: Ola Afolabi vs Victor Emilio Ramirez
Afolabi’s next fight: Ola Afolabi vs Marco Huck 4
Chakhkiev’s next fight: Rakhim Chakhkiev vs Tamas Lodi
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Video: (Free embeddable video hosted on Youtube and not uploaded by AllTheBestFights, to report it please visit this link where the video is hosted)
Very good fight. I don’t understand why the Russian was so mad with Afolabi, may be frustrated because his reach advantage and better jab work. He was trying almost to kill Afolabi but run out of gas during the fourth round. Also Rakhim was very dirty connecting many rabbit punches in front of an imperturbable referee who did also a very bad work no calling a knock down that was obvious.
Anyhow, Afolabi closed the show with a nice knock out otherwise If the fight goes to the end we may be the witness of most likely a controversial result
What a back-and-forth fight! The ref very incorrectly called a slip instead of a knockdown for the Russian guy, but Alobafi corrected that mistake to say the least! Boom! Very short, but I’d say 4 stars for the drama.
Why the hell was the referee counting to 10? Chakhiev was asleep! Seeing that & the knockdown call makes me think the ref was in the Russian’s pocket. Thank god for Afolabi’s sake that he got the KO.
best way to beat chakhiev. have no fear and land your punch he is a bully susceptible to getting dropped. also lost his last fight they didn’t call the knock down in the final round last 10 seconds vs ventura too. they did that again here but afolabi was prepared.
Yeah Chakhiev is like a 3/4 round fighter, which is part of the reason why he was such a good amateur, I guess. He has a tremendous work rate early on, but then appears to gas badly. I thought he had corrected this problem with his recent fight against Wright, but he went back to his old ways again here.
See his fight against
Krzysztof Wlodarczyk for a very obvious instance of Chakhiev having a weak chin. A whole lot of heart in the Russian though. Spectacular fighter.
He jus got caught with a big shot coming the opposite way. recipe for a highlight KO. If you watch ola, he was disrupting his bursts with that jab coming from the hip. Chakhiev was getting tired but ola establishing that jab set the pace after the third round. great composure by ola to get through the fire like that.
Love seeing justice. There was clearly something going on with the Ref being in the home town pocket. Afolabi not even looking like hes wanting to fight. Chakiev throwing everything and the kitchen sink first 3 rounds punches himself out. Afolabi Knocks him clean out with minimal effort! Love it!!
Afolabi is a true veteran and a world-class (albeit a bit past his prime) fighter. one of my favorite fighters in the cruiser weight. good to see him win despite the unfair circumstances. looking forward to him going for the ibf belt. hopefully he wins this time!
what an example of why most guys won’t go there to fight…..the DIRTIEST referee job……. Ola kept his composure. rakhim at one point put him in a head lock and punched him in the second round and the ref did nothing…..
What do people expect in RUSSIA?!! Racist, retarded and corrupt.