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Three years ago in London, heavy punching Armenian super featherweight Leva Kirakosyan stopped Carl Johanneson in the very first frame of a scheduled ten round bout. Last night on a Frank Maloney promotion at the Metrodome in Barnsley, England, Kirakosyan, now the European champ, battered Johanneson thoroughly, dropping the Leeds based British titlist three times before the action was stopped at 1:47 of the fourth round.
While Johanneson did last longer in this rematch, he was simply never a factor against Kirakosyan. The Armenian had traded well against good fighters as high in weight as light welter in the past and from the very first bell, Kirakosyan’s strength advantage was readily apparent.
This was bad news for Johanneson, who has made a career out of out-muscling his opposition, and the favored local man looked at a loss from the start against the European champion.
Kirakosyan started things off in the first with a sickening body attack that cuts right through Johanneson’s attempt to carefully work behind the jab.
Johanneson increased his punch output on the second and had some success inside but Kirakosyan’s shots were much harder and a perfectly timed left uppercut drops Johanneson heavily to the canvas as the second frame comes to a close.
As the third round starts, it’s clear that the Englishman is still badly hurt. Kirakosyan pounces on Johanneson and decks the Yorkshireman with a right hand bomb.
But Johanneson won’t stay down and is soon back at it with the champion at close quarters. The more aggressive style begins to pay off for Johanneson but again the greater firepower of the Armenian comes into play as a sizzling body shot dumps the challenger for a third knockdown.
Johanneson recovers well and holds the champion back behind a blaze of jabs and uppercuts during the first half of the fourth. The rally is short lived however as Kirakosyan unleashes a series of short shots that catch Johanneson heavily and floor him for the fourth and last time as the contest ends.
Kirakosyan improves to 26-4 (17) in making the first defense of his European title while Johanneson drops to 26-3 (18) and must go back to the drawing board.
On the undercard, light welter prospect John “Fireball” Fewkes sailed out to an early lead against 34 year old former European Super Feather Champ Tontcho Tontchev, who was badly cut on the first round.
The undefeated Sheffield man mixed up his offense well to the head and body but lost a point in the fourth for repeated elbow and shoulder infractions. By the sixth the tide has turned and Tontchev is unloading massive overhand shots that have Fewkes holding on.
Tontchev continues the shelling in the seventh and it looks grim for Fewkes until the Bulgarian begins to flag from the big effort and soon finds himself pinned on the ropes.
Fewkes gets his second wind in the eighth and final round, bossing Tontchev convincingly for most of the three minutes before referee Howard Foster finds the decision in favor of Fewkes, 78-74.
It was a risk to step up Fewkes this early in his career but the youngster comes through to improve to 15-0 (2) while Tontchev has now dropped two straight and falls to 37-6 (21).
