Kiryl Relikh scored his 23rd professional victory via unanimous decision over Eduard Troyanovsky via scorecards of 115-113 across the board at the Arena in Yokohama, Japan to retain his World Boxing Association (WBA) Super Lightweight Championship.
The fight was for the quarterfinal in the World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) and was the first defense of the title for Relikh. It was a closely contested fight, with Troyanovsky looking to extend the hard punching champion into the later rounds.
Relikh had the challenger cautiously watching his defense for the first half of the fight, no doubt respecting his power and looking to not get clipped with any of his power shots.
Relikh appeared to slow down in the later rounds, which is where Troyanovsky was able to make the scorecards much closer as he went on the attack when it appeared that Relikh was a little tired and not carrying the same power anymore.
Troyanovsky needed knockdowns or a knockout to win after getting started so late in the fight and he was not able to pull it off in the end.
With the victory Relikh looks to continue to play the big spoiler card in the tournament – with names such as Regis Prograis, Ryan Martin, and Josh Taylor still in the tournament.