PHOTO: Astana Arlans defeated D & G Milano Thunder on the boxing arena

Kazakhstan team The Astana Arlans defeated D&G Milano Thunder in Almaty with the score of 3:2, Tengrinews.kz reports. The first fight at the arena of the Palace of Sport named after Baluan Sholak in Almaty was between the lightest weight category boxers under 54 kg. Khabibula Ismail-Akhunov from Kazakhstan fought against Ukrainian legionnaire from the Italian team Vitaliy Volkov. The fight was difficult to judge, as contenders were almost equal in strength. In the end one referee made Ismail-Akhunov the winner, whereas the other two counted the win to his Kazakh contender. In the 61 kg weight category Merei Akshalov fought against Miklos Varga from Hungary. Before the start of the fight Astana Arlans director Bolat Mankenov stressed that Akshalov always shows excellent results at home. The same happened this time. The Kazakh fighter was precise in his attacks and got the well deserved victory after the referees’ unanimous decision. In one of the most awaited fights of the evening Astana Arlans captain Kanat Islam met with WSB world champion of the last season Ukrainian Sergey Derevyanchenko. To the Kazakh fans’ regrets this fight went with an evident advantage of the Ukrainian. The referees gave the win to Derevyanchenko in all five rounds. The fourth couple of fighters that came to the boxing arena was under 85 kg category. Astana Arlans representative from Algeria Abdelhafid Benchabla met with French Ludovic Groguhe. To remind the first fight of these boxers in the current season ended with the victory of D&G Milano Thunder fighter with the technical knock-out. Back then the Kazakh team explained this loss by the “wolf’s” slippery shoes. Benchabla “revenged” for that mistake. He led all rounds with confidence and won by having two referees deciding in his favor versus one against him. The results of four fights is 2:2. Hence the winner of Astana Arlans and D&G Milano Thunder confrontation was to be determined in the last fight between Ruslan Myrsatayev and Romaric Tangum Ngula from Cameroon. The fight was really intense. The Kazakh boxer dominated in the first round, the Cameroon fighter however managed to tackle his contender by making made more precise strikes in the following two rounds. The fourth round completed the fight. Myrsatayev made an excellent attack with several strongest hits, Ngula stayed up, but could no longer fight back. The boxer’s bottle-holders threw the towel on the arena and the chief referee counted the win to the Kazakh boxer as a technical knock-out. Beibut Eszhanov’s trainees will hold their next fight on February 10 in Moscow against local Dinamo. To remind, the meeting of these two teams on January 9 in Astana ended with a victory of the boxing arena hosts scoring 3:2.